Shelby County has the highest unemployment rate in the state despite the fact that two of its municipalities have the lowest rates among Tennessee cities with 25,000 or more residents.
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development released June’s jobless numbers last week and Shelby’s figure jumped 1.8 percentage points to 13.2 percent.
Germantown and Collierville had the lowest rates in the state at 5.7 and 6 percent, respectively.
These figures remained virtually unchanged from May’s rates. Germantown has a workforce of 18,467, with 1,050 residents reportedly being unemployed.
Collierville has a workforce of 24,251, with 1,466 jobless residents. Bartlett’s June rate was 7.5 percent and is unchanged from May. Shelby County’s workforce is listed at 438,106, with 57,649 having filed for unemployment.
At 6.7 percent, Williamson County had the lowest rate in the state.Memphis saw a 2.4 percentage point increase in unemployment between May and June and is now at 15.3 percent.
The city’s workforce is estimated at 296,761, with 45,456 residents reportedly being unemployed.
Knoxville had the lowest unemployment rate among Tennessee’s three largest cities at 9.5 percent, which is a 3 tenths of a percentage point decrease from the month before.
Nashville had a rate of 12.1 percent, down 2 tenths of a percentage point from May.
Tennessee’s statewide unemployment rate decreased for the second consecutive month.
The June 2020 seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, down 1.3 percentage points from May’s revised rate of 11 percent.
Nationally, seasonally adjusted unemployment dropped by 2.2 percentage points in June, going from 13.3 to 11.1 percent.
Tennessee will release the statewide unemployment rate for July on Aug. 20.
