The unemployment rate in April in the Chattanooga TN-GA Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) was as high as 7 percent in some areas, according to figures provided by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
However, the average unemployment rate throughout the SMSA was 4.5 percent, the state report showed.
Things were worst in Sequatchie County – where 440 of the 6,290 men and women in the total labor force were out of work – with an unemployment rate of 7 percent. That’s up 2.2 percent from April 2007, but down from 7.8 percent in March 2008.
In Marion County, the statistics showed, the April unemployment rate was 5.8 percent – down a full percent from March’s 6.8 percent rate, but up 0.2 percent from April 2007.
Hamilton County's unemployment rate for April was 4.4 percent – up 1.1 percent compared to the same time last year, according to figures released by the state. The county has a workforce of 164,000, of which 156,860 people were employed and 7,150 were out of work.
Unemployment figures were lowest in the portion of the SMSA located in Georgia, the report noted. Of the 80,370 people in the work force there, just 4.3 percent – or 3,490 people – were unemployed while 76,880 had jobs.
That was down a full 2.1 percent from March 2008, when the Georgia area’s unemployment rate was 6.4 percent, but up 0.7 percent from April 2007.
In the nearby Cleveland, TN SMSA, the average unemployment rate was 5.4 percent. That’s an average of the Bradley’s County’s 5.3 percent rate and Polk County’s 6.1 percent unemployment.
The report said 2,510 of the 47,360 members of the workforce in Bradley County were unemployed, compared to 440 of Polk County’s 7,290 workers.
Tennessee's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 5.4 percent, while the national unemployment rate for April was 5.0 percent.