Unemployment Rates Up A Little In September

Unemployment data for September has been released in Tennessee. The Department of Labor and Workforce Development says there was good news in the aspect that 91 of Tennessee’s 95 counties had unemployment rates below 5%. McNairy, Houston, Bledsoe and Lake counties were the only counties with rates higher than 5%. Except Bledsoe, all those counties are in West Tennessee. Unemployment rates in 77 counties did increase from August to September. Rates decreased in five counties but remained the same in 13 counties.

Cocke County was one of those 77 counties to see their unemployment rates increase, from 4.1 to 4.3, a .2% increase. Of the 15,122 in the labor force in Cocke County, only 645 were without employment in September.

Elsewhere in the area, Greene County was up from 4.3 to 4.4%, which is the highest in this area. Hamblen County was up from 3.5 to 3.6%. Jefferson County was up from 3.6 to 3.7%. Sevier County had the lowest rate in the state at 2.7%, but that was up from 2.5% in August. The unemployment rate in Tennessee was 3.2% in September. You can expect unemployment rates to rise in October, due to the flood disaster that took place on September 27 & 28. Numbers for October will be released on November 14.