Tennessee jobless rate fell in May

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee’s jobless rate in May fell compared with a record increase the month before, as more than 300,000 people continued to receive unemployment payouts during the coronavirus outbreak.

The Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development reported Thursday that the preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for May was 11.3%.

That’s a drop of 4.2 percentage points from April, when Tennessee reached its highest monthly unemployment rate ever, at 15.5%.

Unemployment has skyrocketed since March, when Gov. Bill Lee and city and county officials began closing or limiting access to businesses, a move that has led to more than a 600,000 new jobless claims.

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