MSA Unemployment Rates

The Nashville region had the lowest unemployment rate among Tennessee's 10 metropolitan areas in July.

Nashville's current unemployment rate is 3.2 percent, an increase of a tenth of a percentage point compared to the area's July 2017 rate.

Clarksville maintained the highest unemployment rate for July 2018, 5.1 percent, the same rate as July 2017. Not far from Clarksville's rate, Memphis ranked the second highest unemployment with 4.7 percent.

It's hard to tell what might be keeping unemployment relatively low in the Nashville area, according to Yolanda Peacock, an economist with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But one factor might be the relatively high employment growth in Nashville's leisure and hospitality sector.

According to bureau's data in the past 10 years, Nashville gained just over 31,000 jobs. By comparison, Chattanooga gained 6,300 jobs in leisure and hospitality during the same period, and Memphis picked up only 400.

"So you can see how if we look at leisure and hospitality, how the numbers are really different," Peacock said.

Murfreesboro resident, Mykelyia Hyter, was not surprised that Nashville's unemployment rate was not low.

"Nashville's population rate is rapidly growing, so I would expect more job opportunities and the unemployment rate would be lower than other Tennessee areas," Hyter said.