New unemployment claims decreased significantly last week in Tennessee with one of the biggest drops since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

According to the TN Department of Labor, new unemployment claims filed between July 26th and August 1st came in at 11,690.  Looking back, the week ending on April 4th had the largest number of new unemployment claims which came in at over 116,000.

Rutherford County currently has 12,197 people unemployed due to the Pandemic. That number started with only 407 who were jobless at the start of the Pandemic.

To date, over 770-thousand unemployment claims were filed in Tennessee between March 15th and August 1, 2020. Out of that number, only 32% (248,545) of the claims were approved and paid as bonified unemployment cases in the Volunteer State.