Nashville Area
The Nashville area economy grew moderately in the first quarter, even with housing construction in free fall. Nonfarm employment actually picked up a little steam, rising 1.8 percent compared with a gain of just 0.3 percent in the previous quarter.* While the employment gain is welcome, hold off on the celebrations, as the second and third quarters may be a rough ride.Nashville is performing well compared with other parts of Tennessee, with Chattanooga the only other area showing employment growth in the first quarter (Table 1). Knoxville experienced a small decline and Memphis a larger decline, with the rest of the state (smaller metropolitan areas and rural areas) experiencing a sizable loss. Nonfarm employment for Tennessee is down 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter due to losses in the Memphis area and mostly because of job losses in parts of the state not in the four major metro areas. In fact, since 2000, Knoxville and Nashville increased payroll employment by 10 percent or more, while Memphis and Chattanooga grew much more slowly. Payroll employment for the nonmetro portion of the state actually dropped by nearly 8 percent since 2000 (Figure 1). More recently, the nonmetro area has been losing jobs since mid-2006.
next
* Annualized quarterly growth rate after seasonal adjustments.
