As Unemployment Improves In Perry County, State Turns To Lauderdale

The state is looking to emulate the apparent success of a program to reduce unemployment in its hardest hit county. That title had belonged to Perry County, where unemployment peaked at one in four earlier this year. Now as the job market improves there, the state is turning its attention to a new effort, in Lauderdale County, north of Memphis.

Lauderdale County’s unemployment rate for November was more than 18 percent. So the state is poised to create 175 new jobs there, with federal funding temporarily underwriting many private-sector payrolls.

Department of Human Services spokesperson Michelle Mowery Johnson says that lets businesses grow enough now to support the added payroll costs later, when stimulus money runs out.

“So when the spigot is cut off essentially, at the end of September, 2010, when those federal dollars stop coming, these businesses will be very well positioned to keep these employees on, because they’ve been able to grow their business during this time using the stimulus dollars.”

State officials say in Perry County, where that model was first implemented, many employers expect they’ll be able to hold on to those extra workers. Of Tennessee’s 95 counties, Perry is the only county where unemployment rates actually dropped from November, 2008 to the same month this year.