Local 3 News covered the release of new estimates of job growth in Chattanooga and of the CRER’s latest forecast. According to CRER director and chief economist Howard Wall, “2025 was a pretty weak year,” Wall says. “We had positive job growth, but it was choppy and not very strong.” Wall says the job net…
1/24/26: Notable Quotes from a Week in the Chattanooga Area
Our very own director and chief economist was noted for his way with words last week, with one of his barbs at tariff policy: “Tariffs are dumb policies, but random tariffs are 10 times as dumb.” — Howard Wall, director of UTC’s Center for Regional Economic Research, during an interview about job forecasts for the upcoming year.…
1/20/26: Job Market Clouds Gather in Chattanooga: Slow 2026, Sunny 2027 Ahead
CRER director and chief economist Howard Wall was interviewed by NewsChannel 9 about the most recent CRER forecast for the Chattanooga economy: A new forecast shows the Chattanooga area is likely to see slower job growth as 2026 begins, but researchers say a rebound is expected the year after that. A report released last week…
1/20/26: Chattanooga Job Growth Could Normalize After Slow Year
The Chattanooga Times Free Press had a story on the most recent CRER forecast for the Chattanooga MSA economy: The Chattanooga region saw a net gain of 2,000 jobs in 2025. Excluding the pandemic, that makes it the weakest year for job growth since 2014. However, that rate could increase over the next couple years,…
1/16/26: Economic Report Predicts Sluggish Job Growth in Chattanooga Area
WDEF in Chattanooga has a story about the recently released CRER forecast for the Chattanooga economy. They spoke with CRER director and chief economist Howard Wall: Dr. Wall said, “Manufacturing has been slow for a couple of years and that’s nationally not just locally, although there’s special cases locally, and manufacturing has not been helped…