In November, Williamson County recorded the lowest unemployment rate in the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area at 5.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Janet S. Rankin noted that 9 of the 13 counties in the Nashville area recorded unemployment rates below the 8.2-percent U.S. average. Of the four counties with jobless rates above that for the nation, three had rates of 9.0 percent or higher, led by Hickman County at 9.6 percent. (See chart 1 and table A. The Technical Note at end of release contains metropolitan area definitions. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

No county in the Nashville metropolitan area had a jobless rate that was higher in November 2011 than a year earlier. Three counties registered over-the-year decreases matching or exceeding the national decline of 1.1 percentage points, with Cannon County posting the largest drop (-2.3 percentage points). In contrast, Trousdale County recorded the smallest unemployment rate decrease from November 2010, down 0.6 percentage point. The unemployment rate in Smith County was unchanged over the year. (See table A)

In November 2011, all of the counties in the Nashville area had lower unemployment rates than in November 2009. However, the magnitude of the decline over the two-year period varied widely, ranging from 5.1 percentage points in Smith County, the county with the highest jobless rate, to 0.8 percentage point in Dickson County. Macon and Cannon Counties had the next largest declines, 2.6 and 2.5 percentage points, respectively. The majority of counties, 8 of the 13, posted decreases in a narrow range, from 2.0 to 1.5 percentage points. With the exception of Dickson County, all of the counties in the area had an unemployment rate decline that exceeded the nationwide drop of 1.2 percentage points during this two-year span. (See table A)

Technical Note

This release presents unemployment rate data for states and counties from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program, a federal-state cooperative endeavor.

Definition. The labor force and unemployment data are based on the same concepts and definitions as those used for the official national estimates obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a sample survey of households that is conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The LAUS program measures employment and unemployment on a place-of-residence basis. The universe for each is the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years of age and over. Employed persons are those who did any work at all for pay or profit in the reference week (the week including the 12th of the month) or worked 15 hours or more without pay in a family business or farm, plus those not working who had a job from which they were temporarily absent, whether or not paid, for such reasons as labor-management dispute, illness, or vacation. Unemployed persons are those who were not employed during the reference week (based on the definition above), had actively looked for a job sometime in the 4-week period ending with the reference week, and were currently available for work; persons on layoff expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed. The labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Method of estimation. Estimates for the substate areas in this release are prepared through indirect estimation procedures using a building-block approach. Employment estimates, which are based largely on "place of work" estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, are adjusted to refer to place of residence as used in the CPS. Unemployment estimates are aggregates of persons previously employed in industries covered by state unemployment insurance (UI) laws and entrants to the labor force data from the CPS. The substate estimates of employment and unemployment, which geographically exhaust the entire state, are adjusted proportionally to ensure that they add to the independently estimated state or balance-of-state totals. A detailed description of the estimation procedures is available from BLS upon request.

Annual revisions. Labor force and unemployment data for prior years reflect adjustments made at the end of each year. The adjusted estimates reflect updated population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, any revisions in the other data sources, and model reestimation. In most years, historical data for the most recent five years (both seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted) are revised near the beginning of each calendar year, prior to or coincident with the release of January estimates.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on December 1, 2009. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm

The Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
includes the counties of Cannon, Cheatham, Davidson, Dickson, Hickman, Macon, Robertson, Rutherford, Smith, Sumner, Trousdale, Williamson, and Wilson in Tennessee.

Additional information

For personal assistance or further information on Local Area Unemployment Statistics program, as well as other Bureau products, contact the Southeast Information Office at (404) 893-4222 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.

Current and historical information on the Local Area Unemployment Statistics data and other surveys are also available on our regional Web site at www.bls.gov/ro4/home.htm. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; TDD message referral phone: 1-800-877-8339.

 

Last Modified Date: January 20, 2012