An economist for the University of Tennessee said the state is growing but the labor force participation rate has declined.
Dr. Don Bruce, director of the university's Boyd Center for Economic Business and Research, told the State Funding Board at its November meeting that Tennessee employment is up by 195,000 since March 2020.
The state's unemployment rate remains low at 3.2% compared to the national rate of 4.1%. But the labor force participation rate is still depressed at 59.4% in September, according to numbers he presented. The national rate is 62.7%.
