Scott County's unemployment rate falls to an all-time low of 3.1%
The local unemployment rate has never been lower, and there have never been as many Scott Countians working as there are right now.
HUNTSVILLE | Scott County’s unemployment rate has never been lower than it is right now.
According to the TN Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development, Scott County’s unemployment rate dipped half a percentage point to 3.1% in April, down from 3.6% in March.
That is the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded in Scott County, dating back to when the state began maintaining county-level unemployment records in the early 1970s.
Scott County’s jobless rate had previously dipped to 3.6% on several occasions, but never lower. The first month at 3.6% was in April 2019. It later reached 3.6% in April 2024 and again in March 2025.
The latest percentage is based on an estimated local work force of 8,943 persons, of which 8,662 were employed and 281 were unemployed.
The number of working Scott Countians, 8,662, is also at an all-time high, surpassing the number of working Scott Countians — 8,620 — in January 2007, just before the onset of the Great Recession. The number of working Scott Countians increased by 60 from March to April.
The number of unemployed Scott Countians is at its second-lowest point on record. In the first three months of 1979 there were between 230 and 260 unemployed Scott Countians.
In early 2007, before the worldwide economic recession began, there were over 9,100 Scott Countians in the work force and over 8,600 working Scott Countians.
By early 2019, more than a decade later, the number of Scott Countians in the work force had dropped to just over 7,900, of which fewer than 6,600 were working. Despite the unemployment rate being at what was then a record low, the overall jobs picture was stagnant.
Another setback, though much shorter in duration, was seen when the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020. The work force shrank to as low as 7,100 in October 2020, of which only 6,170 were employed.
Since then, however, the work force has bounced back in a big way — and is still trending upward.
Although April is typically the best month of the year for the work force in all Tennessee counties — coming shortly before an influx of new workers into the work force in early summer, which typically couples with seasonal layoffs in the education industry to drive up unemployment rates — the numbers have never been as good in Scott County as they were in April 2025.
Across the state, unemployment rates decreased in 94 counties and increased in just one.
The state’s lowest unemployment rate is now found in Williamson County, at 2.2%, followed by Rutherford County at 2.3%, Wilson, Cheatham, Knox and Robertson counties at 2.4%, and Blount, Macon, Dickson and Sumner counties at 2.5%.
On the other end of the spectrum, Johnson County has the state’s highest unemployment rate, at 5.1%, followed by Unicoi County at 4.9%, Hardeman County at 4.5%, Cocke County at 4.4%, Pickett and Lake counties at 4.3%, Lauderdale and Clay counties at 4.2%, and Perry and Meigs counties at 4.0%.
Scott County currently ranks 45th-lowest among county unemployment rates in Tennessee.
Anderson County’s unemployment rate is 2.7%, while the jobless rate is 2.9% in Campbell County and Fentress County, 3.3% in Morgan County, and 4.4% in Pickett County.
In the state’s major metropolitan areas, the unemployment rate is 2.7% in Nashville, 2.9% in Knoxville, 3.2% in Chattanooga and 4.2% in Memphis.
The statewide unemployment rate is 3.6%, and the national unemployment rate is 4.2%.