Summary

The Johnson City and Kingsport-Bristol metro areas both added jobs over the past year while national hiring nearly stalled. Healthcare and hospitality led growth in both markets. The local hospitality gain stands out because the sector lost jobs nationally in June. The major risk ahead is a national slowdown in health care hiring, since much of the region’s recent job growth rides on it.

By DON FENLEY

The Tri-Cities job market keeps growing on a narrower base. Healthcare anchors both metro areas, but their second engines have split. Johnson City now runs on consumer spending, and Kingsport-Bristol runs on professional services. Half of Kingsport-Bristol’s sectors lost jobs over the past year, yet the metro area still grew, a sign of how much the gains now lean on a few winners.

Healthcare and hospitality carry both markets

Two industries did the heavy lifting in both metro areas. Healthcare kept expanding, and leisure and hospitality added workers heading into summer. These are the same anchors that have steadied the regional economy for years. Their strength is why both markets grew even as several smaller sectors slipped.

Johnson City leaned on retail

Retail trade led job growth in the Johnson City metro area, and that runs against the national grain. Retailers have trimmed payrolls in many markets as shopping moves online. Here, stores added the most jobs of any sector. Healthcare and hospitality followed close behind. The small dips in professional services and information sit on tiny bases, so they matter less to the overall market than their percentages suggest.

June year-over-year comparison in thousands of jobs.

Kingsport-Bristol leaned on professional services

The Kingsport-Bristol metro area told nearly the opposite story. Professional and business services led its growth, while retail lost ground. Health care again ranked near the top. Manufacturing held steady, which matters more here because factory work makes up a larger share of local jobs than it does in Johnson City. The soft spots clustered on the goods-moving side, in wholesale trade and transportation.

June year-over-year comparison in thousands of jobs.

Two markets that mirror each other

Side by side, the two markets look like near opposites in two sectors. Where one leaned on retail, the other leaned on professional services. Both leaned on health care and hospitality. The shared anchors matter more than the differences. They point to steady demand for services across the whole region.

The month-to-month dip is seasonal

Both metro areas slipped on the headline count from May to June. That drop traces to a single source. Government payrolls fall each June as the school year ends, and these figures are not seasonally adjusted. Strip out government, and both markets added private-sector jobs in June. The underlying signal was growth, not weakness.

The nation cooled sharply

The national job market nearly stopped growing in June. Employers added 57,000 jobs, far short of the 115,000 that economists expected. The government also revised April and May down by a combined 74,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, but for a weak reason. It dropped mainly because people left the labor force, not because more found work.

The sector story lined up with the Tri-Cities in one way and split in another. Professional and business services and health care led national growth, the same industries holding up the local markets. But leisure and hospitality lost 61,000 jobs nationally on weak summer hiring. Both Tri-Cities metros grew hospitality jobs instead. Local tourism and dining ran ahead of the national trend rather than behind it.

What to watch

One national number deserves attention. Healthcare hiring came in slower than its normal pace in June. Healthcare is still the strongest anchor in both local markets. If that national slowdown reaches the region, it would pull back the single biggest source of recent job growth. That makes healthcare the sector to watch through the rests of the year.

Categories: CORE DATA, LABOR MARKET