Fri
Jul 24 2009
11:02 am
Area unemployment for June
By: R. Neal

The state's overall unemployment rate in June was 10.8%, up from 10.7% in May. The national unemployment rate in June was 9.5%.

Area unemployment rates for June 2009:

continued...

• Anderson County: 10.9% (May : 10.2%, June 2008: 6.0%)
• Blount County: 10.6% (May: 10.1%, June 2008: 5.8%)
• Grainger County: 14.2% (May: 13.7%, June 2008: 8.0%)
• Hamblen County: 13.3% (May: 12.6%, June 2008: 6.9%)
• Jefferson County: 12.7% (May: 12.2%, June 2008: 6.5%)
• Knox County: 8.5% (May: 7.9%%, June 2008: 5.2%)
• Loudon County: 10.1% (May: 9.6%, June 2008: 5.8%)
• Roane County: 9.9% (May: 9.3%, June 2008: 6.1%)
• Sevier County: 9.7% (May: 9.7%, June 2008: 5.7%)
• Union County: 11.9% (May: 10.8%, June 2008: 6.4%)
• Washington County: 9.2% (May: 8.6%, June 2008: 6.0%)

Perry County again had the highest June unemployment at 22.1%, which is down slightly from May. Lincoln County had the lowest at 7.1% which is up slightly. Knox County again ranked third lowest.

Unemployment was 9.3% in Hamilton County, 9.4% in Davidson County, and 10.5% in Shelby County.

June unemployment was 20.4% in the City of Maryville, the highest city unemployment reported. It was 13.7% in Knoxville, and 8.9% in Oak Ridge. The lowest city unemployment was 6.7% in Brentwood.

Source

Topics:
bill young's picture

More bad news for Mountain Folk

Submitted by bill young on Fri, 2009/07/24 - 3:32pm.

County unemployment rates

Greene-16.5%
Cocke-13.2%
Hawkins-12.9%
Unicoi-12.6%

City unemployment rates

Morristown-19.4%
Kingsport-12.7%
Bristol-11.6%
Chattanooga-10.3%

Spend time debating guns everywhere?
Hell no!!!!

Spend time gettin' something done about jobs?
HELL YES!!!!!!!

Elrod's picture

Suspect numbers

Submitted by Elrod on Fri, 2009/07/24 - 7:01pm.

Sorry, but nobody - I mean NOBODY - believes that Maryville's unemployment rate is 20.4%. The Blount County numbers are likely correct. But the Maryville numbers have failed the smell test for several months now.

The only thing I can conclude is that they counted all the Alcoa plant layoffs as Maryville residents (even for those who LIVE in the city of Alcoa) - without adding the Alcoa population to the denominator.

20.4% is Great Depression level. There are plenty of empty storefronts around town but no signs of an outright depression in Maryville (and certainly not one in the city of Maryville but NOT in the county).

bizgrrl's picture

Yeah, 20.4% is pretty darn

Submitted by bizgrrl on Mon, 2009/07/27 - 5:39pm.

Yeah, 20.4% is pretty darn high. That's higher than the Detroit metro area. Of course, you can't really compare the large population of the Detroit area to Maryville, or Blount County.

I called the City of Maryville and State of TN to get some background on the high unemployment in Maryville.

Parameters to come up with unemployment numbers:
--------------------------------------------------
1. Unemployment insurance claims
Claims are tabulated by place of residence, not place of employment.
This parameter is given the heaviest weight when calculating unemployment numbers.
2. Survey of 11,000 employers in whole state.
There are approx. 115,000 employers in whole state.
3. Census survey of 650 households in whole state.

According to the State of TN:
-----------------------------
1. Blount County has approx. 60,000 people in the workforce
City of Maryville has approx. 15,000 people in the workforce

25% of Blount County workforce lives in the City of Maryville.
60% of total unemployment claims from Blount County are from the City of Maryville

My calculations (hope I am correct):
--------------------------------------
10.6% Blount County unemployed = 6,360 people classified as unemployed
60% of Blount Count unemployed are in City of Maryville = 3,816 people classified as unemployed
20.4% City of Maryville workforce (15,000) unemployed = 3,060
The numbers are pretty close.

I do believe the Alcoa layoffs probably have an affect on Maryville unemployment.

RE The only thing I can conclude is that they counted all the Alcoa plant layoffs as Maryville residents (even for those who LIVE in the city of Alcoa) - without adding the Alcoa population to the denominator.

They said no, they are not adding any Alcoa residents in the calculations.

I asked if they could tabulate unemployed counts by the zip codes of the employers of the unemployment claimants. This is not data that is easily, readily available. They can put in a request but there is no guarantee the request will be fulfilled, nor, if it will, how long it will take.

I wonder if the Maryville school system is attracting more people to live within the city limits and it just happens that these people are the ones getting laid off, but they did not work in the city limits.

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