Over the past decade, the economy of the Chattanooga metro area has outperformed that of the country as a whole. Between January 2014 and December 2023, the number of nonfarm jobs (also called payroll employment) rose by 18.8 percent in the Chattanooga metro area, but by only 14 percent in the United States. The COVID pandemic and its aftermath certainly left its mark along the way, but Chattanooga and the United States both have recovered roughly to the levels of employment they would have had if pre-pandemic trends had continued. The good news for Chattanooga is that the positive boost in its trend prior to the pandemic appears to have become the new normal.
