Initial and continuing unemployment insurance claims are some of the only high-frequency data points on the U.S. labor market. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the weekly claims numbers have been a highly followed metric of economic damage. Close examination reveals clear errors in unemployment insurance claims numbers, making it hard to compare claims within and across states, and clouding our interpretation of national totals.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies more broadly are rapidly developing and changing the types of goods and services that people demand and the ways in which they are produced and received. As a result, employment in many industries and occupations is being disrupted. The transitions are likely to accelerate during the next decade, further affecting nearly every aspect of life and work.

This 2020 volume of An Economic Report to the Governor of the State of Tennessee is the forty-fourth in a series of annual reports compiled in response to requests by state government officials for assistance in achieving greater interdepartmental consistency in planning and budgeting efforts sensitive to the overall economic environment. Both short-term, or business cycle-sensitive forecasts, and longer-term, or trend forecasts, are provided in this report.