Alabama jobless rate down to 7.5% as economy reopens

Alabama’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.5% as the economy recovers during a worsening coronavirus threat, the state said Friday.

The jobless rate from June was down substantially from April, when it hit 12.9% as almost 217,000 lost their jobs as businesses closed or cut back because of the pandemic. But some 165,700 people are still out of work, statistics show.

“People are returning to work as the economy further reopens, but we are beginning to see slight rises in the number of initial unemployment claims filed each week,” Fitzgerald Washington, the state labor secretary, said in a statement.

Stores and beaches began reopening in the state on April 30 after weeks of inactivity because of the pandemic, and additional businesses have resumed work since with restrictions on crowd size and additional cleaning.

While the jobless rate declined, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, COVID-19, has spread to the point where Gov. Kay Ivey imposed a statewide mask ordinance that took effect Thursday afternoon.

Reopening businesses pushed the unemployment rate to below 5% in counties including Clay, Cullman, Marshall and Shelby, statistics showed, but the rural west Alabama counties of Lowndes, Perry and Wilcox still have jobless rates in the teens. Wilcox County is worst in the state at 18.5%.