Jobless rates hit new lows in area
Before the pandemic, Lodge Manufacturing typically got 10 candidates for every available job opening at its South Pittsburg, Tenn., foundry.
“We were the employer of choice in this area, and we got a lot of people wanting to work here,” said Mike Otterman, president and CEO at the castiron cookware maker. “Now, if you can come in fill out an application, we’re going to give you a chance to work here — it’s pretty close to that.” As Lodge prepares to add another 239 jobs to meet the growing demand for its products in an increasingly tight labor market, Otterman said finding enough workers today is one of his biggest challenges even after the company recently raised hourly wages anywhere from 50 cents to $2.50 above what he said were already some of the highest factory wage rates in the area.
Lodge is among a growing number of employers struggling to find workers to respond to growing consumer demand amid a smaller workforce than a year ago.
Unemployment in the Chattanooga area sunk last month below 3% for the first time in nearly two-and-a-half years. The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported Thursday that the jobless rate in the 6-county metro area dropped to just 2.9% — tying metro Knoxville for the lowest unemployment rate among Tennessee’s seven major urban areas.
Unemployment fell even lower in metro Dalton, Ga., dropping to its lowest level in 22 years, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
The jobless rate in the Dalton area declined six-tenths of a percentage point to 2.5%, its lowest level since Dalton’s
all-time record low unemployment rate of 2.3% in September 1999.
Unemployment last month was even lower in some of the suburban Chattanooga counties just south of the Tennessee border. The jobless rate fell to a mere 1.6% in Dade County, 1.7% in Catoosa and 1.9% in Walker counties.
“We are seeing alltime low unemployment rates throughout the state of Georgia, reflecting an economy that is continuing to rapidly recover,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said Thursday in a new report on the state’s employment market. “We are working with employers across the state to post, recruit and fill critical positions in preparation for a strong holiday employment season.”
Jobless rates in most Chattanooga area counties during September were below both the statewide jobless rate of 3.5% and the U.S. rate of 4.6% last month.
“We continue to see economic growth coming out of the pandemic, and I think with the demographic trends in the labor market, we’re likely to see the jobless rate get even lower,” said Bill Fox, director of the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee. “Tennessee didn’t lose as big of a share of jobs as most of the country, and it seems to have bounced back faster.”
While the U.S. has yet to regain all of the jobs lost during the pandemic-induced recession last year, Chattanooga’s employment totals are back to the pre-pandemic levels reached in early 2020.
Chattanooga area employers added 8,686 jobs over the past 12 months, and local job rolls have swelled by 20,574 positions since the worst of the pandemic-caused slowdown in April 2020.
But even with more jobs, the number of people in the workforce either on the job or unemployed and willing to work has declined in the past year. Fox said many workers retired, quit or re-evaluated their work lives during the coronavirus shutdowns and shift to more remote work.
The size of the labor force last month in Chattanooga was down by 350 people. Statewide, Tennessee had 92,860 fewer available workers than a year ago. The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of adults who are working or trying to find a job, has dropped in Tennessee from 62% a year ago to 59.7% last month, according to government figures.
Fox said some workers may have stayed off the job due to enhanced jobless benefits and other government benefits, but he said many others also decided during the pandemic to retire if they are an older worker or stay home with their children rather than pay for child care. The aging workforce and declining birthrate could continue such trends, Fox said.
Such a long-term decline or even stagnation in the workforce would reverse a decades-long growth in Chattanooga’s labor market.
But to the south in Dalton, the workforce remains well below the peaks levels reached a decade and a half ago. Despite the near-record low jobless rate in the Dalton area, total employment in Whitfield and Murray counties is still 15.6% less, or 10,752 fewer jobs, than in June 2006 when employment peaked in Dalton.
“One of the things that happened in the Great Recession in 2009-2010 is that the floorcovering industry upgraded their equipment to be more efficient and require fewer workers,” said Rob Bradham, president of the Dalton/Whitfield County Chamber of Commerce.
In the past 12 months, Dalton area employers added 3,064 jobs as the economy has rebounded from the pandemic slowdown, and the Carpet Capital has benefited by the increased focus on residential carpet and floorcovering. Unemployment in metro Dalton jumped to a record-high 19.8% in April 2020, when carpet mills and other businesses shut down due to the coronavirus. The jobless rate has declined steadily since.
“The labor market is definitely a challenge,” Bradham said. “It’s probably the No. 1 complaint I hear from employers.”
On Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s website for job seekers, Jobs4tn. gov, listed 553,300 available jobs, or 3.6 jobs for each Tennessean counted as unemployed in the state last month.