Kingsport-Bristol
at the margin.

## Labor Market Conditions — Kingsport-Bristol

The Kingsport-Bristol labor market is in equilibrium, holding steady after a long stretch of gradual recovery. Employment grew 0.32% over the past year — a modest but positive figure — and the pace of that growth is neither accelerating nor retreating in any meaningful way. This is not a market under stress, but it is not generating strong momentum either.

What's notable beneath that calm surface is the direction of unemployment, which has declined roughly 5% compared to a year ago. That improvement suggests workers are being absorbed into jobs at a slightly faster rate than new job creation alone would indicate — likely a combination of modest hiring and some contraction in the labor force itself, a pattern common in smaller Appalachian metros. Employment growth and falling unemployment moving together, even at low velocity, points to a market where available workers are increasingly spoken for.