Continued rise in unemployment causes concern on The Murfreesboro Post

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Continued rise in unemployment causes concern

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By: ERIN EDGEMON, Business Editor

Posted: Sunday, November 2, 2008 6:47 am

Continued rise in unemployment causes concern

TMP Photo by Kelly Hite. Ricky and Joannie Anderson search through job listings as they wait to speak to a counselor at the Career Center.

Ricky and Joanie Anderson have found themselves in the middle of one the worst economic conditions Rutherford County has faced since the early 1980s recession.

The former truck drivers, who have been out of work since March, though, are just two of the 8,380 people in the county who are unemployed.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported the September unemployment rate for Rutherford County at 6.4 percent, the highest recorded in the county since the 1980s when the state’s unemployment rate hit 13 percent in January 1983.

“This is concerning,” said David Penn, director of the MTSU Business and Research Center. “Typically, in a downturn, we see the worst effects on the labor market after the economy bottoms out and then starts to improve.”

Penn said this means that Rutherford County’s unemployment rate could continue to increase over the next year.

“We may be at the front end of a continued rise of unemployment,” he said.

Rutherford County’s unemployment rate was at 3.7 percent last year. Last month, it was at 5.8 percent.

The county’s unemployment rate is lower than Tennessee’s average of 7.2 percent but higher than the United States’ rate of 6.1 percent.

Rising fuel costs and the lack of mileage caused the Andersons to give up truck driving earlier this year. They just assumed they would be able to find other jobs.

But over the last seven months, they have only been able to find temporary jobs that last one or two days and those that pay about $7 an hour.

Even those are few and far between, they say.

“We are just taking it day by day,” Joanie said, trying to stay optimistic even though the couple has had to file bankruptcy and while the bills pile up.

This story isn’t uncommon of those visiting the Tennessee Career Center hoping to gain assistance in finding a job.

Heading into the summer months is when Donna Durkee, a job counselor at the Murfreesboro career center, began to notice greater numbers of job seekers enter the office.

Around that time, the list of available jobs also seemed to shorten, she said.

Single mother Laura Caldwell has been looking for work for about three months. She is finding it difficult to find a day shift job that pays enough to allow her to support her two children.

She previously worked at Josten’s in Shelbyville but had to leave the job after a divorce.

“It is really hard,” Caldwell said. “It is like no one is hiring, and if they are, they are not paying good.

“You are just wasting time because you are just working for gas,” she said.

Caldwell said she is just trying to make do the best way she can by driving as little as possible and juggling her bills.

Marcus Thomas, a 25-year-old MTSU student, has been looking for work to help support himself while trying to earn a pre-dental degree since May.

“I need some decent work because it is expensive going to school,” he said.

Thomas, however, said he can’t even find a job working in a restaurant.

He is surviving by living off some money he had saved up and by walking to campus.

Penn said it would likely be six months before the county receives figures on where the job losses are occurring. He expects the vast majority are in residential and commercial construction and manufacturing.

Some of the large layoffs in Rutherford County reported to the Department of Labor & Workforce Development include 527 workers at Whirlpool in La Vergne from June to August of this year; 144 workers at Gateway Pro Partners to end February 2009; 55 workers at Tower Automotive in August; and 115 at Quality Industries last year.

Hundreds of others took buyouts at Nissan’s assembly plant in Smyrna.

Davidson and Rutherford county companies let a total of 4,103 workers go between January 2007 and Oct. 27, 2008, according to the Department of Labor & Workforce Development, but not all layoffs are reported.

Rutherford County should expect more job losses in other sectors like retail, transportation, wholesale, distribution and government over the next several months, Penn said.

On the bright side, he said the economy should begin to improve when housing construction stops dropping and then begins to rebound.

“We could see a leveling off of housing construction in four or five months,” Penn said.

Erin Edgemon can be reached at 869-0812 and at eedgemon@murfreesboropost.com.

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Member Opinions:

By: fenton on 11/2/08
These very disturbing unemployment statistics, I fear, will not truly be realized for about a year. This economy crisis will take that long for the currency "deficiencies" to trickle down throughout the nation's small businesses and 'mainstreets' in full. That's why the business 'talking heads' on the television news have that 'oh s%*t' look in their eyes. It's only the end of the beginning. We must individually prepare ourselves for the " lesser money" reality which is coming soon. Be smart.

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