By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News
Alabama’s unemployment rate decreased in October, but state joblessness is still impacted by the coronavirus.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in October was 5.8%, down from 6.7% in September, the Alabama Department of Labor said this morning. Alabama’s unemployment rate was 2.7% in October 2019.
October’s rate represents 130,329 unemployed persons, compared to 153,338 in September and 61,210 in October 2019.
“We’re glad to see nearly a drop of almost an entire percentage point in our unemployment rate this month,” Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington said in a written statement. “We will continue to see fluctuations in these economic indicators as pandemic concerns remain, but this month showed growth in both the number of jobs we are supporting and the number of people who are working.”
In April, Alabama’s unemployment rate reached nearly 14% amid the COVID-19 response.
The number of people counted as employed in October was 2,121,505, up from 2,119,297 in September, but down from the 2,186,771 in October 2019.
Counties with the lowest unemployment rates are: Franklin and Cullman Counties at 3.2%, Shelby, Randolph, Marshall, and Blount Counties at 3.3% and Dekalb and Cherokee Counties at 3.4%.
Counties with the highest unemployment rates are: Lowndes and Wilcox Counties at 14.9%, Perry County at 10.5% and Dallas County at 10.4%.