MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The unemployment number is down, and jobs are up in Alabama, according to the preliminary, seasonally-adjusted January jobs report released Tuesday.
The January unemployment rate was 6.0%, down from 6.1% the previous month. The rate is a precipitous drop from the 7.2% of job-seeking Alabamians who were unemployed in January of 2014.
This astounding rate marks the fasted year-over-year job growth since 2006.
“January’s rate marks 14 months with no increase in our unemployment rate,” Governor Robert Bentley said in a press release Tuesday morning. “For the past two months, more than two million people are working in this state, which hasn’t happened since November 2008. We continue to remain hopeful that our economy is turning around and Alabamians are gaining employment.”
With 2,006,903 Alabamians employed, according to the Current Population Survey (CPS), more Alabamians are at work than at any point since November of 2008.
“Our economy is supporting the largest number of jobs since 2008,” Alabama Labor Commissioner Fitzgerald Washington said. “The annual increase in jobs, year over year, is the second highest we’ve experienced in the past decade. That’s certainly great news and shows that Alabama’s employers are continuing to hire.”
Of Alabama’s 67 counties, only Colbert County saw an increase, ticking up 0.2 percentage points. The largest county improvement was seen in Wilcox County whose unemployment rate has dropped an amazing 5.4 percentage points since January 2014, though the county is still plagued with a very high unemployment rate.
Alabama counties with the lowest unemployment rates are: Shelby County (4.2%), Lee County (5.2%), and Elmore, Tuscaloosa, and St. Clair Counties (5.3%).
To see out the unemployment rate in your county check out the map below:
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