Written By: Ted Evanoff

Just the other day, Greater Memphis Chamber chief executive Ted Townsend described an economic surge under way.

"Memphis is in the high-growth phase of our economy," Townsend told guests on Feb. 24 at the chamber's State of the Economy meeting.

Business may be more productive. But no hiring boom has followed.

Employers report about 6,800 fewer jobs were on payrolls in December than five years earlier, just before the Covid shutdowns.

Greater Memphis' unemployment rate measured 4.3% in December (the most recent month figures are available), up from 3.7% in December 2023 and 3.8% in December 2019, estimates the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Businesses have rebounded since the area economy was mired in summer 2020. About 70,000 people were idled after mayors and governors ordered temporary shutdowns of companies. Many of those jobs have come back. But not all of them.

Townsend singled out the production rebound within companies. He noted the total value of goods and services produced in the region -- the gross domestic product -- has reached $102.9 billion annually.

That represents a 25% increase in output since 2020. That is a boom. But hiring has not matched the productivity.

Employers in the nine-county Memphis region reported 659,200 payroll jobs in December, down from 660,900 a year earlier and 666,000 in December 2019.

Much of the job loss occurred in professional and business services. It is a wide ranging category in which the Bureau of Labor Statistics includes such firms as accountants, architects, engineers, lawyers and security guards.

In December, the number of jobs totaled 88,200 in professional and business services, compared to 99,100 five years earlier.

The job losses reflect the population decline. Metropolitan Memphis was home to 1,330,000 people in the most recent U.S. Cenus region-wide report (in 2023), about 11,000 fewer residents than in 2019.

The loss showed chiefly in Memphis and Shelby County, which numbered 910,024 people (in 2024), compared to 930,020 in 2019. Over the same period, DeSoto County's population rose by about 8,000 to 193,247. The nine-county metropolitan area consists of the Tennessee counties of Fayette, Shelby, Tipton; the Mississippi counties of Benton, DeSoto, Marshall, Tate, Tunica; and Crittenden County, Ark.

In comparison, regions Memphis compares itself to gained population. The metro areas of Dallas, Kansas City, Louisville, Nashville, Oklahoma City and Raleigh each had more residents in 2023 than just before the Covid shutdowns.

During the Chamber event on Feb. 24, officials forecast an industrial surge. White House policy advisor Elon Musk's xAI project in Memphis could encourage more manufacturers to locate nearby. And tariffs on imports are expected, officials said, to lead manufacturers to close factories abroad and reopen in the United States.

President Donald Trump similarly ordered tariffs during his first term. Industrial emploment in the metro area rose from 43,000 jobs in 2017 to 45,000 in 2019 just before Covid set in, but has since come down. Manufacturing employment currently stands at 42,600 jobs.

Even if tariffs create more factory jobs the region might not grow its total number of jobs. It isn't clear how many layoffs in the federal workforce will occur under Musk's effort to revamp the federal government. He heads the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, which has ordered mass layoffs, primarily in Washington so far.

In Greater Memphis, the federal government is the second largest employer after FedEx with an estimated 18,000 workers including employees of the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Navy human resources department.