Metro unemployment rate falls below 4 percent

Unemployment fell in the Chattanooga area last month to its lowest level for August in a decade as employers in the six-county metropolitan area added more than 10,000 jobs in the past year.

The jobless rate in metro Chattanooga dropped another four-tenths of a percentage point last month to 3.9 percent — the lowest rate for August since 2007. Although Chattanooga’s jobless rate dipped even lower this spring, seasonal gains in the number of workers seeking jobs edged the nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate up from the 16-year low reached in May.

Nonetheless, local job recruiters said finding workers is getting increasingly tough, forcing employers to raise wages, in many instances, to fill job vacancies.

“The job market is very, very tight right now, probably the tightest it has been in may 25 years in this business,” said Mark Campbell, who owns the Manpower franchise in Chattanooga and Cleveland. “The economy in Chattanooga and the surrounding areas is so strong that to recruit workers we’re having to do everything we can on social media and elsewhere to find enough qualified workers.”

Campbell said wages for many starting jobs are up 10 percent in the past 18 months as employers dip deeper into the labor pool to fill the growing demand for workers.

The Tennessee labor department said employment grew in metro Chattanooga by 10,023 jobs in the past year— a yearly growth rate of 4.1 percent, or more than triple the U.S. growth pace in the same period.

“There’s a lot of growth right now, but you have to remember it was a long road

“There’s a lot of growth right now, but you have to remember it was a long road coming out of the recession. We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of good announcements from Volkswagen, Amazon and others over the past decade and that has certainly added to the wave of growth we’ve enjoyed in this region. At least for the next year or so, we see this growth continuing.”

— CHARLES WOOD, VICE PRESIDENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AT THE CHATTANOOGA AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

coming out of the recession,” said Charles Wood, vice president of economic development at the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of good announcements from Volkswagen, Amazon and others over the past decade and that has certainly added to the wave of growth we’ve enjoyed in this region. At least for the next year or so, we see this growth continuing.”

With unemployment below 4 percent in both metro Chattanooga and metro Cleveland, Tenn., getting enough qualified workers is becoming a bigger concern for many businesses.

“In the past, businesses looking at Chattanooga would ask about land availability first, but now the availability of workers is almost always their first question,” Wood said.

Across Tennessee, the jobless rate during August fell in all 95 counties.

“To see a decrease in each and every county across Tennessee is quite an accomplishment and a sign of our state’s financial strength,” Gov. Bill Haslam said in releasing the employment report Thursday. “Our historic low unemployment rate is a reflection of Tennessee’s policies. We’re a low tax state that encourages business investment and we don’t have a lot of debt, which allows businesses to thrive and create jobs.”

Rhea County had Tennessee’s highest unemployment rate at 6 percent last month, but even that rate was down a full percentage point from July.

Haslam noted that more than 400 new jobs will be added in Dayton, Tenn., over the next couple of years by the Finnish tire maker Nokian Tyre. The company announced earlier this year it was locating its first North American manufacturing facility in Dayton.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.