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Tennessee Works - Recession Proof Jobs

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) – WMOT News is looking at sectors of the Tennessee economy that have prospered in hard times in a series of stories we’re calling "Tennessee Works."

Tennessee’s unemployment rate peaked in June of 2009 at 10.8 percent. Joblessness has fallen slowly in the months since, but is still uncomfortably high at eight percent.

There are some professions, though, that enjoyed low unemployment even at the height of the great recession.

Bill Wood is President of Wood Personnel Services, one of Middle Tennessee’s largest employment agencies.  Wood says local employers are always clamoring for more IT workers.

“Nashville is a growing technological hotbed and I think that trying to find more technical people is always a challenge. The unemployment rate for IT people now is around three percent and so they’re always in high demand.”

Wood says health care workers and accountants have also enjoyed low unemployment throughout the economic downturn.