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Rural Places Like Tennessee’s Weakley County Lagging in Job Growth More Than Metro Areas

Jimmy Emerson, DVM
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Flickr (Creative Commons License)

A rural non-profit website has found that urban areas are experiencing job growth rates twice that of rural places.

The Daily Yonder analysis states Weakley County in Tennessee had one of the nation’s highest job loss rates at more than 11 percent. Nationally, the average county had a job growth rate of one and a half percent.

But Weakley County Economic Development Board President and CEO Ronnie Price says he cannot recall any major job losses.

“We’re not growing or seeing the projects or the growth that the Nashville area, for example, is seeing, or the Chattanooga area,” he said. “And I think that’s kinda that way all across the country. The urban areas are growing faster.”

Price says he thinks that fluctuation may be related to seasonal jobs at the area’s largest private employer MTD Consumer Group.

“They manufacture riding lawnmowers, and they employ during their peak season around 1,100 to 1,200 people,” he said. “In fact they’ve done an expansion that over the course of three to four years will add 225 new full-time positions. But they have about 400 seasonal workers who work 7 to 8 months a year during the peak times when they’re getting all their lawnmowers built for the new season, and they show up on our thing as unemployed.”

The county with the highest job growth rate was Todd County right above the national average. See an interactive map of counties and their job growth rates here.

Credit The Daily Yonder

Whitney grew up listening to Car Talk to and from her family’s beach vacation each year, but it wasn’t until a friend introduced her to This American Life that radio really grabbed her attention. She is a recent graduate from Union University in Jackson, Tenn., where she studied journalism. When she’s not at WKMS, you can find her working on her backyard compost pile and garden, getting lost on her bicycle or crocheting one massive blanket.
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