Over the past decade, the Chattanooga economy has undergone a manufacturing-led resurgence and has experienced job growth significantly higher than the national average. Over the period, the manufacturing sector changed from one dominated by non-durable goods such as food to one dominated by durable goods such as automobiles. This recent resurgence is in contrast with the overall performance of the Chattanooga economy since 1990. Between then and the end of 2023, the total number of non-farm jobs grew by about 75 thousand but would have grown by almost 90 thousand if the area had grown as fast as the rest of the country. Other than the COVID recession, Chattanooga was hit harder by recessions than was the rest of the country, and it even had its own recession in the mid-1990s.
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