UCDD Reports Highlight Labor Force, Poverty Issues In Region

The Upper Cumberland Development District issued several individualized reports to community leaders highlighting areas for potential improvement.

Executive Director Mark Farley said one of the largest overlying problems across the region is the need for a larger workforce.

“We’re almost to that point where we need to start recruiting our young people to stay local, not to move off to Nashville, Knoxville, or our metropolitan areas,” Farley said. “We need to actually look at recruiting workers from those metropolitan areas and get them to live in a more rural setting. They can still work remotely and hopefully, we can capture them into industries in our local economies.”

Farley discussed the reports with city and county mayors during the UCDD’s executive board meeting Wednesday. He said another struggle is lowering the Upper Cumberland’s poverty rating despite an overall decrease in unemployment rates across the country.

“While we see a great benefit coming to our region, there is … separation and our poverty rate is increasing, unfortunately,” Farley said. “That’s an area that we need to look at and ensure that not only are we recruiting jobs at the higher end, the high-paying, the high-tech jobs, but we also have to understand we have to recruit jobs for those who are less skilled in our workforce.”

The individual reports to each city and county government also analyzed education obtainment and compared per-capita income with market income.