Alabama’s unemployment rate for the month of July reached a new record low of 2.1%, beating out the previous record low of 2.2% that persisted from May to June.
Courtesy of a new jobs report from the Alabama Department of Labor, the latest monthly unemployment rate marks a considerable improvement over the same time last year, with July 2022’s rate at 2.6%.
The state’s labor participation rate, which measures all unemployed adults unlike the unemployment rate, which only measures adults seeking work, remained unchanged in July at 57%.
July’s figures show the number of unemployed adults at 48,834, marginally lower than June’s 50,377, and July 2022’s 59,409. The number of employed adults increased in July compared to the same time last year by 28,382 for a total of 2,258,166 employed Alabamians, a new record high.
“Alabama continues to set economic records,” said Alabama Department of Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington in a statement. “Not only did we maintain our streak of setting new employment records, we also saw yet another decrease in our unemployment rate, bringing us to a new record low of 2.1%.”
When compared to July 2022, the leisure and hospitality sector saw the largest gains with more than 9,800 jobs added for a total of 213,400 workers reported. The education and health services sector saw the next highest gains when compared to July 2022 at more than 7,800, followed by the government sector which added more than 6,700 jobs.
“Another bright spot to note this month is the recovery of the leisure and hospitality sector, which was hit especially hard by the pandemic,” Washington said. “In July, this sector came within 300 workers of reaching its previous (and pre-pandemic) record high of 213,700 workers. That’s certainly an amazing turnaround in that industry!”
Every county in Alabama saw its unemployment rate either remain stable or decrease in July when compared to June, with Shelby County having the lowest unemployment rate at 1.7%. Morgan, Madison, Limestone and Cullman counties had the next-lowest unemployment rates at 1.9%. Wilcox, Dallas and Perry counties had the highest unemployment rates in June at 6.7%, 5.5% and 3.5%, respectively.
While state leaders championed the continued drop in the state’s unemployment rate, Gov. Kay Ivey has recently called for a shift in focus to target the labor participation rate, which at around 57%, is currently near its all-time low of 55.4%, a rate recorded in April 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.