By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News
Alabama’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in September was 6.6%, up from 5.6% in August and 2.7% in September 2019.
“As we continue to gauge the economic impacts of this pandemic, we expect to see fluctuations in our unemployment rate,” Alabama Department of Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington said in a written statement this morning. “In September, we saw fewer people entering the labor force, fewer people working, and more who were counted as unemployed. All of those factors will increase the unemployment rate. We will continue to work with employers and the unemployed to put Alabamians back to work.”
September’s rate represents 148,912 unemployed people, compared to 125,855 in August and 61,495 in September 2019.
In April, Alabama’s unemployment rate reached nearly 14% amid the COVID-19 response.
“We did see an increase in the number of jobs the economy is supporting, with a gain of a little more than 9,000,” Washington said about September. “We hope to see hiring pick up over the next couple of months as we approach the holiday season.”
Counties with the lowest unemployment rates are: Cullman County, 3.8%, and Randolph, Marshall, and Franklin counties, 3.9%. Counties with the highest unemployment rates are: Wilcox County, 17%, Lowndes County, 15.9%, and Greene County, 11.9%.