Alabama unemployment numbers continue to decline
Published 9:55 am Friday, September 18, 2020
- Pictured from left, are, Cullman Mayor Woody Jacobs, Ainsworth, HomTex CEO Jerry Wootten, HomTex President and CFO Jeremy Wooten, and Senator Garlan Gudger. Sen. Gudger had invited the Lt. Gov. Ainsworth to tour the facility. HomTex is undertaking a $5 million expansion expected to create 100 new jobs.
Alabama Department of Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington announced that Alabama’s preliminary, seasonally adjusted August unemployment rate is 5.6%, down from July’s rate of 7.9%, and above August 2019’s rate of 2.8%. August’s rate represents 127,186 unemployed persons, compared to 176,556 in July and 62,149 in August 2019. Cullman County has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Alabama.
Counties with the lowest unemployment rates are: Clay County at 3.4%, Randolph, Franklin, Marshall, Cullman, Cleburne, and Cherokee Counties at 3.6%, and Blount County at 3.7%.
“The drop in the unemployment rate is certainly good news for Alabama,” said Governor Kay Ivey. “We have worked extremely hard to open Alabama’s businesses safely, and to put our hard-working families back to work. We know that challenges remain, and we will endeavor to meet them so that we can get back to our previous, pre-pandemic record setting employment numbers.”
“August showed a larger drop in the unemployment rate than we’ve seen for a few months,” said Washington. “We are continuing to see our initial claims drop, staying under 10,000 for the past several weeks. We regained another 22,200 jobs this month but are still down more than 86,000 from this time last year.”
“One highlight is that our civilian labor force, or the number of people who are working or actively looking for work, is at its highest level ever! This means that people are confident that jobs are there for them to find,” continued Washington.
Several industries saw their average weekly earnings reach record high levels, including:
Total Private: $941.76, up $91.03 over the year
Goods Producing: $1099.76, up $48.91 over the year
Construction: $1,067.90, up $72.79 over the year
Manufacturing: $1,128.13, up $72.26 over the year
Private Service Providing: $895.57, up $102.32 over the year.
Many of Cullman’s local industries are looking for employees, and the Cullman Economic Development Agency will be hosting a job fair Saturday, Sept. 26 at the Cullman Wellness and Aquatic Center to help fill some of those positions.S
Companies represented at the fair will include Walmart Distribution Center, Topre, REHAU, NAFCO, RWC (formerly Cash Acme), AGCOR Steel and HH Technologies.
