Cocke Co. Still Has Highest Unemployment Rate

The loss of the ConAgra plant in Newport continues to be felt in the latest unemployment numbers. Individual county unemployment numbers for February were released on Thursday, and Cocke County is still not in a good spot., as Cocke County now still sits at 95th out of 95 counties with the highest unemployment rate in the state. Cocke County’s unemployment rate did fall to 6.3% in February…that’s down from 7.1% in January but still high enough to give the county the highest rate in the state for the second month in a row. Lake, Perry and Shelby counties in the western part of the state were right behind as the only counties to have unemployment rates in the state higher than 5%. The lowest unemployment rate in the state was 1.8% in Moore County….that county is known as metropolitan Lynchburg…where Jack Daniel’s whiskey is made.