January’s preliminary labor market reports show the Tri-Cities had a little more than 4,000 more nonfarm jobs than it did in January last year.
The same report shows the seven-county region’s labor market had a nonfarm job gain of 500 last year from the 2017 annual average.
January’s report puts the annual average Johnson City nonfarm total at 80,700, up 400 from 2017. It lists the preliminary Kingsport-Bristol annual average as 123,000, up 100 from 2017.
Another set of adjustments – for the January preliminary monthly numbers – are due week after next in the February jobs report.
Benchmarking the annual nonfarm job totals against pre-recession highs show the Johnson City labor market has recovered from the Great Recession while Kingsport-Bristol is still struggling.
Last year the Johnson City MSA had 800 more jobs than it did in 2008, the year before the Great Recession hit the local labor market.
Kingsport-Bristol had 1,700 fewer jobs than it did in 2008.
January’s unemployment rates were:
Tri-Cities – 4%.
Johnson City MSA – 4.1%.
Kingsport-Bristol 4%
Carter Co. – 4.6%
Greene Co. – 5.2%
Hawkins Co. – 4.2%
Johnson Co. – 4.1%
Sullivan Co. – 4%
Unicoi Co. – 5.8%
Bristol TN – 3%
Johnson City – 3.5%
Kingsport – 4.2%
Johnson City – 3.7%
Categories: CORE DATA, LABOR MARKET
Recruiting more human capital population creates more demand creating more jobs to service more people with more revenues.
When and why did you move here?
I moved here from the Washington DC area in 1993 after accepting a job as the editorial page editor at the Times-News.
Do you know of others that have moved here for reasons other than the traditional economic development industrial job recruitment program.
No, but it would be interesting to start a Facebook Group Page and invite those who have moved here to say when and why
Certainly would but I have no clue how to do that…or who should do this…seems like a logical volunteer research approach to the understanding why people move here as a guide on perhaps how marketing the region to increase population of human capital should be considered. I see on our local stations a steady diet of TV adds promoting Asheville, Michigan, Myrtle Beach and others and wonder why they are marking there region. We are all competing for human capital and their financial capital to move to these areas seems to me. Maybe this can be sponsored by the regional Realtor Association as a public service.