Tennessee unemployment rate drops to 9.7% for June

The total number of Tennesseans to file new unemployment claims since mid-March surpassed 700,000 last week, according to state data released Thursday, but the state’s unemployment rate continues to fall.

Tennessee’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 9.7% in June, down from May’s revised rate of 11%. In Tennessee, 714,329 have filed for unemployment since March 15, though the number of continued claims has dropped steadily since early May. In the week ending July 11, 251,924 people filed weekly certifications to continue their claims.

Last week, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development received 22,431 new unemployment claims, a slight drop from the previous week, in which new claims neared 26,000.

The number of new weekly claims has hovered above 20,000 for the last month, with the number of claims creeping up from 21,155 in the week ending June 20 to 25,843 in the week ending July 4. Prior to June, the number of new weekly claims had been steadily dropping since spiking in early April.

In an average month prior to the COVID- 19 pandemic, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development processed around 15,000 new claims per month. In the last four weeks alone, the department has received more than six times that amount, with a total of 91,685 new claims.

The department paid 269,527 claims in the week ending July 11, amounting to more than $254 million in federal coronavirus relief funds. The payments have so far included an extra $600 per week authorized by the CARES Act, but those supplemental payments will end after the week ending July 25.

Tennessee’s unemployment rate reached a record-breaking high of 15.5% in April, surpassing Tennessee’s previous high of 12.9% in December of 1982 and January of 1983.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel

The East Tennessee Economic Development Agency markets and recruits business for the 15 counties in the greater Knoxville-Oak Ridge region of East Tennessee. Visit www.eteda.org

 

Published July 17, 2020