Tennessee’s preliminary unemployment rate for August was 5.7 percent, unchanged from the July revised rate, Tennessee Labor & Workforce Development Commissioner Burns Phillips announced Thursday.
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Sinclair said 36 states still have higher unemployment rates than they did before the Great Recession began in December 2007.
The largest increase occurred in professional and business services, which rose 3,300 jobs to 687,400 in August.
“Our unemployment rate has been cut in half over the last four and a half years”, said Gov. Rick Scott, who went to the Boca Raton offices of home security firm ADT to release the latest numbers.
Unemployment in California, the largest state by population, remains elevated at 6.1 percent, though that is down sharply from 7.4 percent a year ago.
Nationally, Nebraska had the lowest unemployment rate in August at 2.8 percent, followed by North Dakota at 2.9 percent, Hawaii at 3.5 percent, and New Hampshire and Vermont at 3.6 percent each.
August’s figure is also 1.6 percent lower than the year-ago estimate, according to the department’s analysis.
Rutherford County’s jobless rate stayed at 5.2 percent in July, which was the sixth best in the state.
It said Indiasna’s labor force increased by 5,629 people last month, and weekly claims for unemployment insurance are at their lowest levels since 1994.
“Even with revisions, which always happen, I’m not expecting to see any significant change in the trends we’re seeing”, Pakko said. Major industries that experienced job gains were in the categories of Leisure & Hospitality, Construction; Trade, Transportation & Utilities; Educational & Health Services, and Financial Activities. And while private sector job growth has been broad, it has not been deep. That is up from 7.5 percent in July. Government lost 7,100 jobs. But almost 6 percent worked full time and year round, and still fell below the poverty line, according to the data.
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“We need to recruit more companies”. States where payrolls declined the most included New York and Texas, where employment dropped by 13,700 each.
