Unemployment numbers due to coronavirus (Memphis, Knoxville: appointed, home, job market)

[JMT]

March was the beginning of Tennessee's shutdown as a response to the coronavirus pandemic. With many businesses closed and employees either laid off or furloughed, the state's robust economy hit a snag. While the state, over all, is doing better than the national average and still gained jobs over the previous year and even over the previous month, the growth was primarily in just a few areas of the state: Nashville and Southeast Tennessee (Chattanooga/Cleveland/Athens/Dayton). Lawrenceburg did surprisingly well, too. April's numbers, which should be released next week, will give additional insight and a better reflection of how this pandemic has affected the state's labor force.

Here's how Tennessee's metropolitan and micropolitan areas did over the last year.

area...March 2020 employment...unemployment %...1-year change in employment

1. Nashville...1,071,612...2.8%...23,252
2. Memphis...614,374...4.3%...-2,286
3. Knoxville...418,411...3.5%...-3,659
4. Chattanooga...270,588...3.7%...4,348
5. Kingsport-Bristol...131,893...4.2%...-2,847
6. Clarksville...113,170...4.8%...-100
7. Johnson City...88,424...4.1%...-1,946
8. Jackson...62,051...3.8%...-1,289
9. Cleveland...58,712...3.8%...2,003
10. Sevierville...51,471...4.1%...-669
11. Morristown...50,989...4.2%...-41
12. Cookeville...48,415...4.0%...235
13. Tullahoma-Manchester...48,184...3.9%...-876
14. Greeneville...28,051...4.9%...-1,049
15. Athens...23,137...4.2%...557
16. Crossville...22,360...5.5%...-210
17. Shelbyville...20,244...4.0%...194
18. Lawrenceburg...18,718...4.2%...608
19. Dyersburg...15,770...5.1%...-150
20. McMinnville...15,690...4.5%...-420
21. Martin...15,509...3.7%...-471
22. Lewisburg...15,240...3.8%...-10
23. Newport...14,150...5.5%...-220
24. Union City...13,902...5.2%...72
25. Paris...13,487...5.0%...-433
26. Dayton...12,860...5.9%...300
27. Brownsville...7,324...5.0%...-86

TENNESSEE TOTAL...3,231,986...3.7%...11,286

https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/wo...matesMar20.pdf
https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/wo...matesMar19.pdf

[Serious Conversation]

Brutal.

Nashville is kind of riding on past glories. Chattanooga will probably go negative within a few months unless things turn around. Everyone else is circling the drain, but what can you expect?

Hopefully the reopening is a success.

[MetropolitanTN]

Great data, JMT. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[dc1538]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

Brutal.

Nashville is kind of riding on past glories. Chattanooga will probably go negative within a few months unless things turn around. Everyone else is circling the drain, but what can you expect?

Hopefully the reopening is a success.

These numbers aren't brutal. She didn't post the 2019 unemployment % as comparison. To me this indicates a slow down in the economy overall that some have been forecasting for some time. Nashville had the smallest uptick in unemployment rate at .2%, out of the big metros in Tennessee. The other bigger metros had around a .4% uptick in the unemployment rate.


On the other hand, next month will be brutal. In the Memphis area around 80k have filed for unemployment during the pandemic, which didn't include Desoto County, MS in those numbers. For the overall state it's 300k+. We are likely to see an 8-10% overall state unemployment rate for the month of April.

[danielj72]

We were shut down because of fear for one month. We will be paying for that month for a very long time. Some states are now at over 2 months and still locked down. They will never recover. I’ve seen their tags on the road everywhere this weekend.....Michigan, Illinois etc. They are desperate and trying to escape. Of course if they think they can move down here to escape the ruination that will be their home states they will be disappointed, we will be lucky to have enough jobs for our own.

This is not coronavirus caused unemployment. This is fear caused unemployment. I still do not know of a soul who had coronavirus, I do not know anyone who knows someone with coronavirus. Fear did this. The media orchestrated the fear and now we should be looking into the reason for it. People will not like the answer when it comes out.

The hurt of the virus was tiny compared to the hurt of the depression we know have to live with. There is 1/4 of the workforce laid off.....lives destroyed. We will see how it washes out now that we are reopened. Let’s hope and pray that the reopening will save as much of our state economy as possible. We elected a businessman as president and our governor is a businessman.....lets hope they both have the ability to make the best choices.

[Thelinnen]

Originally Posted by danielj72

We were shut down because of fear for one month. We will be paying for that month for a very long time. Some states are now at over 2 months and still locked down. They will never recover. I’ve seen their tags on the road everywhere this weekend.....Michigan, Illinois etc. They are desperate and trying to escape. Of course if they think they can move down here to escape the ruination that will be their home states they will be disappointed, we will be lucky to have enough jobs for our own.

This is not coronavirus caused unemployment. This is fear caused unemployment. I still do not know of a soul who had coronavirus, I do not know anyone who knows someone with coronavirus. Fear did this. The media orchestrated the fear and now we should be looking into the reason for it. People will not like the answer when it comes out.

The hurt of the virus was tiny compared to the hurt of the depression we know have to live with. There is 1/4 of the workforce laid off.....lives destroyed. We will see how it washes out now that we are reopened. Let’s hope and pray that the reopening will save as much of our state economy as possible. We elected a businessman as president and our governor is a businessman.....lets hope they both have the ability to make the best choices.

I'm with you, it's incredible what's happening and amazing that so many can't see what's on the horizon.

[dc1538]

Originally Posted by danielj72

We were shut down because of fear for one month. We will be paying for that month for a very long time. Some states are now at over 2 months and still locked down. They will never recover. I’ve seen their tags on the road everywhere this weekend.....Michigan, Illinois etc. They are desperate and trying to escape. Of course if they think they can move down here to escape the ruination that will be their home states they will be disappointed, we will be lucky to have enough jobs for our own.


This is not coronavirus caused unemployment. This is fear caused unemployment. I still do not know of a soul who had coronavirus, I do not know anyone who knows someone with coronavirus. Fear did this. The media orchestrated the fear and now we should be looking into the reason for it. People will not like the answer when it comes out.


The hurt of the virus was tiny compared to the hurt of the depression we know have to live with. There is 1/4 of the workforce laid off.....lives destroyed. We will see how it washes out now that we are reopened. Let’s hope and pray that the reopening will save as much of our state economy as possible. We elected a businessman as president and our governor is a businessman.....lets hope they both have the ability to make the best choices.

I know two people who contracted the Corona virus personally and there's been a few at my job who contracted it. So it's real. Did rural areas need to be locked down. In hindsight it doesn't seem likely, but to me, it's a 'did the chicken or the egg come first' scenario. Did social distancing actually work? If no restrictions were in place it have spread more in less populated areas of Tennessee due to people picking it up through travel to other areas? Should have only the high populated area's been under some sort of lock down? They would have likely traveled to unlocked areas if this was the case and spread it to less populated areas. Who knows?

I do like the fact that the governor let the rest of the state open up and let the major cities open up on there on timeline. A county with 30k in population with 1-3 cases does not have the same issues as a county with close to 1 million people and 3600+ cases.

With that said I think the unemployment rate will likely recover shortly, and it's actually 14.7%, not 25%. That's an example of over exaggerating things or using fear tactics. Will employment levels likely reach pre-corona virus levels? Likely not, but there's a good chance we were headed for a downturn, corona virus or not anyway but now we'll never know. I think the measuring stick of the job market will be set later this year if there's a strong second wave of the corona virus and we have another shutdown. On the bright side, and it's anecdotal evidence, I saw more cars on the interstate in my city than I have in weeks this morning. So that sounds like things are somewhat getting back to normal even though I stay in one of the counties that's still under some sort of restrictions.

[Wartrace]

I'd like to see April's numbers which I suspect are a tad higher since the "safer at home" order didn't come into play in March.

[KY_Transplant]

Originally Posted by danielj72

We were shut down because of fear for one month. We will be paying for that month for a very long time. Some states are now at over 2 months and still locked down. They will never recover. I’ve seen their tags on the road everywhere this weekend.....Michigan, Illinois etc. They are desperate and trying to escape. Of course if they think they can move down here to escape the ruination that will be their home states they will be disappointed, we will be lucky to have enough jobs for our own.

This is not coronavirus caused unemployment. This is fear caused unemployment. I still do not know of a soul who had coronavirus, I do not know anyone who knows someone with coronavirus. Fear did this. The media orchestrated the fear and now we should be looking into the reason for it. People will not like the answer when it comes out.

The hurt of the virus was tiny compared to the hurt of the depression we know have to live with. There is 1/4 of the workforce laid off.....lives destroyed. We will see how it washes out now that we are reopened. Let’s hope and pray that the reopening will save as much of our state economy as possible. We elected a businessman as president and our governor is a businessman.....lets hope they both have the ability to make the best choices.

Yup, my company is relocating me from Kentucky (I worked in Nashville office) to Jacksonville, FL. Many States are going to be forever financially ruined by the shutdowns, especially poorer States such as Kentucky and States that rely on tourism like Tennessee.

[JOinGA]

Originally Posted by danielj72

We were shut down because of fear for one month. We will be paying for that month for a very long time. Some states are now at over 2 months and still locked down. They will never recover. I’ve seen their tags on the road everywhere this weekend.....Michigan, Illinois etc. They are desperate and trying to escape. Of course if they think they can move down here to escape the ruination that will be their home states they will be disappointed, we will be lucky to have enough jobs for our own.

This is not coronavirus caused unemployment. This is fear caused unemployment. I still do not know of a soul who had coronavirus, I do not know anyone who knows someone with coronavirus. Fear did this. The media orchestrated the fear and now we should be looking into the reason for it. People will not like the answer when it comes out.

The hurt of the virus was tiny compared to the hurt of the depression we know have to live with. There is 1/4 of the workforce laid off.....lives destroyed. We will see how it washes out now that we are reopened. Let’s hope and pray that the reopening will save as much of our state economy as possible. We elected a businessman as president and our governor is a businessman.....lets hope they both have the ability to make the best choices.

Instead of using the work "fear" to try to belittle and shame the leaders and citizens who followed the guidance of the scientists and public health experts, why don't you listen to the Republican Governor of North Dakota and "dial up your empathy and understanding." You are fortunate that the virus has not touched your life with tragedy. With close to 100,000 dead, and counting, there are many, many Americans who cannot say the same.