According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in Knox and Warren Counties is around 3.9 percent, which is below the state rate of 4.4 percent. When it comes to labor force in the local area, Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer informs in 2023 those numbers started to level out:
“Labor force is defined as anybody that is looking for a job or has a job, so the total sum of people that are unemployed and employed equals your labor force. Our labor force in the two-county area has been declining for like twenty years, not rapidly, but we have been losing fifty, sixty, one hundred workers each year, and we have seen this for two decades. What was really interesting, around mid-2023 that labor force started to level out. Today we are currently right around 20,700 workers in the two counties. That goes up and down a little bit, it fluctuates seasonally, but if you pull the curve and look at over a long period of time, it actually flattens out starting in 2023. I think that is pretty good news for the market. I would much rather have a flat labor force than one that is declining.”
Springer states that unemployment rates in the Knox and Warren County areas have been hovering right around four to five percent the last two years.
