The storyline racing around Tennessee this week made it sound like the bottom had fallen out of the job market in most of the state. A TV segment boiled it down to a viral-friendly claim that most counties lost jobs in 2025, and that Nashville’s boom was hiding everyone else’s pain. The truth, once you dig into the numbers, is trickier: the Nashville area is pulling in a big share of new jobs, but many counties outside the metro are still adding work too.
What the report said
Local TV coverage leaned on the line that “most counties in Tennessee saw job loss in 2025,” citing a recent analysis. As reported by WKRN News 2, the segment argued that the state’s job growth was largely clustered in and around Davidson County. That kind of framing suggested that decline was the dominant story everywhere outside the Nashville orbit.
Numbers tell a mixed story
The University of Tennessee’s Boyd Center puts some guardrails around that narrative when you zoom in on county-level data over a slightly earlier period. According to the Boyd Center, 61 of Tennessee’s 95 counties actually saw job growth between March 2023 and March 2024, while 34 counties posted declines. The report also notes that Davidson County alone added roughly 8,847 payroll jobs in that 12-month stretch, a reminder that one big metro can swing statewide totals in a hurry…