RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TN - Rutherford County is one of multiple counties throughout Tennessee that are seeing record low unemployment numbers. Statewide, Tennessee continued to experience near-record low unemployment in April. Overall, all 95 counties in Tennessee reported lower unemployment in April and each county had a rate below 5%.
The latest numbers from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD) show county unemployment decreased in Rutherford County by 0.3 points between March and April. Currently, Rutherford is one of 7-counties in the state with an unemployment figure of 2.1%. Williamson County had the lowest jobless rate in April at 1.9%, followed by Moore County at 2%. After that, Cheatham, Sumner, Rutherford, Robertson, Davidson, Wilson and Knox Counties all recorded a 2.1% unemployment rate.
Smyrna remains the champion for having the lowest unemployment figure in Rutherford County. The latest numbers for April show that Smyrna's jobless rate was 2.1%. Murfreesboro and LaVergne both recorded an unemployment rate of 2.2% this past April.
Williamson County recorded the lowest statistic in the state and its April rate was the lowest the county has seen in the last 22 years. At 1.9%, unemployment in the county decreased by 0.5 of a percentage point when compared to March. Moore County came in with the second-lowest rate in the state at 2%, a 0.3 of a percentage point drop from the previous month’s number.
Remarkably the rates in the ten counties with the highest unemployment ranged from 4.6% to 3.6%.
Bledsoe County had the state’s highest rate. But, the new 4.6% was down 0.7 of a percentage point from March. Meigs and Haywood counties had the next highest rates at 4.5% and 4%, both down a full percentage point when compared to the previous month. Every other county in the state had an unemployment rate below 4%.
Statewide, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 3.3%, down 0.1 of a percentage point from March’s rate. It is also just above Tennessee’s all-time lowest unemployment rate of 3.2%.
Across the country, seasonally adjusted unemployment also decreased in April, down 0.1 of a percentage point to 3.4%. A complete analysis of the April 2023 county unemployment data and other labor force information is available here.