Tennessee factories slow job losses

11/28/2011

The rate of job losses in Tennessee's manufacturing plants slowed last year, according to a report.

The state has 375,099 manufacturing workers, down a modest 5,645 from a year ago, Manufacturers' News Inc. said in its 2012 Tennessee Manufacturers Register.

That's an improvement from 2009-2010, when Tennessee lost 22,286 manufacturing jobs, the Evanston, Ill.-based publishing company said.

Tennessee's three largest industrial sectors all have expanded since last year: Industrial machinery and equipment (up 4.4 percent), fabricated metals (up 1.1 percent) and transportation equipment (up 1.3 percent). Food products manufacturing employment also rose by 1.6 percent.

However, most other industrial sectors lost jobs, including furniture/fixtures (down 10 percent), rubber/plastics (down 8.4 percent), printing/publishing (down 8 percent), lumber/wood (down 6.3 percent), textiles/apparel (down 5.2 percent), stone/clay/glass (down 4.8 percent) and chemicals (down 3 percent).

Employment in paper products, electronics and primary metals remained steady.

Among major cities across the state, Memphis lost 2.8 percent of its manufacturing jobs but remains Tennessee's largest industrial center with 38,304 workers.

Nashville rates second with 28,099 industrial jobs, down 1.4 percent. Meanwhile, Chattanooga saw a 12.7 percent jump in factory employment to 22,322 manufacturing jobs, largely because of the newly opened Volkswagen plant there.

Source: WBIR