MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's unemployment rate has taken another big drop, to 8.1 percent, bringing it below the national rate for the first time in a year.
Gov. Robert Bentley said Friday that December's rate is down from 8.7 percent in November. The national rate now stands at 8.5 percent.
Alabama's unemployment rate peaked in July at 10 percent and has been declining since then. The state's drop coincides with a decline in the national rate and in neighboring states, though Alabama's rate has gone down faster.
"In the last three months alone, we've seen an unprecedented drop of 1.7 percentage points," Bentley said.
Keivan Deravi, an economist at Auburn University Montgomery, said the state's optimism should be tempered because the declining rate resulted from both more jobs and from unemployed people stopping their job searches, which means they drop out of the unemployment statistics.
The December statistics showed that the number of people working increased by nearly 4,000 from November, but the number of people looking for a job fell by more than 13,000. Deravi said that shows more people quit looking than found jobs.
"More and more people are giving up. The significant question is, 'What will happen to these guys?'" he said. Based on past experience, the unemployment rate will drop to a point where these people feel encouraged to resume hunting for jobs and the unemployment rate will go up, he said.
The December figures show there were nearly 41,600 more Alabama residents working than when Bentley took office in January, when the unemployment rate was 9.3 percent. Gains came in several sectors, including trade, transportation and utilities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and manufacturing. Declines occurred in the government and information sectors.
"I have to say that 2011 turned out to be a pretty good year, in terms of reducing unemployment, but we still have work to do," Bentley said.
Asked at a news conference whether Alabama's new immigration law is a factor, Bentley said there is no way to tell for sure because unemployment has dropped in states without immigration laws, but the law may be a factor in some counties.
A sponsor of the state's tough new immigration law, Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, said it has to be a factor because Alabama's rate has dropped faster than any neighboring state. "There is no reason for Alabama to be that far ahead other than that," he said.
State Industrial Relations Director Tom Surtees, who oversees Alabama's unemployment benefits program, said Friday there are many positive indicators that the state's economy is slowly improving. They include the initial claims for unemployment in December, total benefits paid, and weeks of unemployment claimed being lower than in the last three years.
"We're excited about coming from where we were, but we are not where we want to be yet," he said at a news conference.
Counties with the lowest jobless rates in December were Shelby at 5.2 percent, Coffee at 6 percent, and Pike and Lee at 6.4 percent. Counties with the highest rates were Wilcox at 16.3 percent, Bullock at 13.7 percent, and Perry and Lowndes at 13.5 percent.
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