Like the nation, Tennessee will see economic growth steadily improve in the quarters ahead. Nonfarm employment gains will occur in each quarter of 2010, but these gains will be insufficient to overwhelm the losses of last year. For the year as a whole employment will be down 0.2 percent compared to an unprecedented 5.6 percent setback in 2009. By 2011 the employment situation will have stabilized and the year will produce job growth of 1.8 percent. Even the state manufacturing sector will have new-found life in 2011 with employment advancing 3.0 percent-the first gain since 1997. Unfortunately manufacturing will not be able to erase all of the jobs lost over the course of the current business cycle. In light of the revived economy, the state unemployment rate will drift below 10 percent before the close of the year.