Welcome to the only city in America where unemployment is falling

07/30/2020 Business, Health


Of the 389 metropolitan areas tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is the only city in the country where the unemployment rate has not increased in the past year. City officials blame that on their top employers: healthcare providers, bourbon and tobacco producers, and manufacturers of personal protective equipment.

“We have made it as a community,” Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson told CNN Business on Wednesday.

To date, Watson said the city had about 500 confirmed cases of coronavirus, which has led to 53 people being hospitalized and eight deaths.

While national unemployment was around 11% in June, Owensboro’s unemployment rate was only 4.2%. That has decreased slightly since June 2019, according to a new report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.The city’s workforce of nearly 54,000 had just over 2,200 people unemployed in June, down from 2,499 a year ago.
The city has not been immune to job cuts; It lost about 3,200 jobs a year ago, according to BLS. Some workers have also withdrawn from the workforce, which is partly why the unemployment rate fell, but even so, unemployment remains well below the rest of the country.
Owensboro’s restaurant and small business communities were forced to suspend and fire staff in March when government-ordered closings began.

But according to Mayor Watson, the city’s top private employers compete in some of the few industries that see economic gains during the pandemic and have been hiring as a result.

According to the mayor, Owensboro’s largest employer, his hospital, Owensboro Health, has had good financial results during the pandemic.

The city also houses bourbon makers Sazerac and OZ Tyler. Unsurprisingly, domestic sales of alcoholic beverages and beer have increased during the pandemic.

“At a time when tens of millions of people in our country are entering unemployment, we are proud to have been able to protect and maintain work for our team members and we plan to bring 80 additional well-paying jobs to Owensboro,” said the spokeswoman for Sazerac, Amy. Preske told the Owensboro Times during union negotiations in March.
Unifirst, a workplace uniform company, also manufactures personal protective equipment, which has been in high demand and in short supply across the country.

Owensboro also has a Swedish Match-owned tobacco products factory. The Stockholm-based company said it saw surprising double-digit sales growth in the second quarter, driven by demand for its nicotine patches in the United States.

The president and CEO of the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce, Candance Castlen Brake, says the city is also located among some of the country’s largest population centers, including Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Nashville, and Indianapolis, making it which makes it an optimal distribution center.

Brake acknowledged that Owensboro’s fate is an anomaly, but says it was not an accident.

“During the last recession, our economic development team invested a large amount of money in our downtown area thanks to a $ 40 million grant from the federal government,” said Brake. “The private development that occurred in the city center because of that has really put us on the map as a community. I think so far we have been fortunate in that the growing sectors in our community when the pandemic hit still flourished and prospered. “

—Annalyn Kurtz contributed reporting.

See how the economic recovery is unfolding in the United States and its state with this CNN board.

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