Jobless rate dips again
Franklin County’s unemployment rate dropped for the second consecutive month in March.
The county’s jobless rate dipped from February’s high of 12.8 percent to 12 percent in March. The March rate is slightly below the 12.1 percent reported during the same time period last year.
Alabama Department of Industrial Relations Director Tom Surtees announced Friday that the state unemployment rate fell to 11 percent in March, down from February’s rate of 11.1 percent.
March’s rate represents 227,273 unemployed persons in Alabama. Those figures include 1,499 Franklin County residents.
Wage and salary employment in Alabama increased by 12,100 over the month, with most of the upturn resulting from gains in the leisure and hospitality sector, the trade, transportation, and utilities sector, the government sector, the professional and business services sector, and the educational and health services sector.
“While we are certainly pleased to see a small decrease in the unemployment rate, I want
to caution everyone that we are not out of the woods just yet,” Surtees said.
“For the second month in a row, we have seen an increase in wage and salary employment, and that’s a good sign. Hopefully, these positive signs will continue to come our way as we continue to pay benefits in an extremely timely manner to Alabamians that need them.”
According to data provided from the U.S. Department of Labor, Alabama paid 94.3 percent of first time claimants in 21 days or less during the last quarter of 2009. In the first quarter of 2010, those numbers remained at 94 percent.
Alabama has the highest percentage in the Southeast.
The counties with the lowest unemployment rates were: Madison at 8 percent, Shelby at
8.1 percent and Coffee at 8.3 percent.
The counties with the highest unemployment rates were Wilcox at 24.8 percent, Monroe at 20.4 percent and Conecuh at 19.4 percent.
Franklin County’s numbers are in the middle of the pack when it comes to northwest Alabama.
Lauderdale is at 10.1 percent, Colbert is at 11.1 percent, Lawrence is at 12.9 percent, Marion is at 16.1 percent and Winston County is at 18.2 percent.
