Roane, state jobless rates drop in April

Roane County’s unemployment rate dropped marginally in April to 7.2 percent.

That’s a difference of 0.3 percent, according to statistics released late last month by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The state reports 25,570 workers in the county’s 27,560 labor force were employed in April.

In January 2011, the county recorded a jobless rate at 8 percent, 0.8 percent higher than the most recent figures.

Tennessee’s jobless rate also dipped in April to 7.6 percent, down 0.5 percent from March’s figures and 1.6 percent lower than the 9.2 percent recorded in April 2011.

The U.S. unemployment rate, at 7.7 percent in April, was down 0.7 percent. It’s also 1 percent lower than for the same time period last year.

Statewide, 84 counties saw jobless rate decreases, and five counties experienced an increase.

The rate remained unchanged in six of the state’s 95 counties.

Williamson County in Middle Tennessee had the state’s lowest rate at 5.3 percent.

Lincoln County, at 5.5 percent, followed, while neighboring Knox County had the third-lowest rate at 5.8 percent.

Scott County had the state’s highest jobless rate at 15.4 percent.

West Tennessee’s Obion County had the second-highest rate at 12.7 percent, followed by Pickett County, on the Kentucky border on the Cumberland Plateau in Middle Tennessee, at 12.1 percent.

April rates for surrounding counties were Anderson, 7.5, down 0.4 percent; Cumberland, 8.7, down 0.6 percent; Knox, 5.8, up 0.2 percent; Loudon, 6.2, down 0.5 percent; McMinn, 9.2, down 0.5 percent; Meigs, 10.0, unchanged; Monroe, 10.1, down 1.3 percent; Morgan, 10.0, down 0.1 percent; and Rhea, 9.5, down 0.4 percent.