Knox area unemployment drops as fear of possible recession rises
Which industries need workers the most? And which skills are the most sought after? We break down the data from the Knoxville Chamber's most recent Economic Conditions Outlook.
Lots of people have jobs in the Knoxville area though the size of the labor force did shrink a bit, according to the latest Economic Conditions Outlook (ECO) from the Knoxville Chamber and First Horizon Bank.
Knoxville’s unemployment rate in December 2022 was 2.6 percent, down from 3 percent in November 2022 and 2.9 percent in December 2021. Knox County also saw a drop down to 2.4 percent in December 2022. Both these rates are lower than the national unemployment rate of 3.3 percent.
The top industries looking for employees right now are transportation and warehousing, health care and social assistance, administrative support, waste management, and remediation services. That’s according to the total amount of job postings in December.
The chamber asked businesses to list their top opportunities and challenges in 2023.
Some of the listed opportunities include:
- Filling backlog of orders as capital expenditures increase output
- New residents continuing to relocate from other states
- Optimizing operations with more technology integration
Some of the listed challenges include:
- Possible recession worries and possible decrease in consumer spending
- Rising interest rates and a cooling real estate market
- Use of bots and artificial intelligence
When it comes to the skills “disrupting and transforming the workforce” going forward, the Business-Higher Education Forum identified them in a new report.
The organization found that artificial intelligence/machine learning, cloud computing, product management, and social media are the fastest-growing skill sets, with one out of every eight job postings requiring at least one of these skills.
You can read the entire ECO report here.
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