Area jobless rates drop, reaching pre-pandemic levels

Apr. 18—The jobless rates in Lawrence, Limestone and Morgan counties have dropped to the pre-pandemic levels of a year ago, and local businesses are struggling to recruit employees.

In Morgan County, the unemployment rate for March was 2.4%, compared to 2.6% a month ago and 2.3% a year ago. Lawrence County had a jobless rate of 2.6% in March, compared to 2.8% in February and 2.7% a year ago. Limestone County's 2.1% unemployment rate, the third lowest in the state, compared to 2.3% a month ago and 2.4% a year ago.

The preliminary figures were released Friday by the Alabama Department of Labor.

"Like most of the country, we are experiencing low unemployment rates," said Jeremy Nails, president and CEO of the Morgan County Economic Development Association. "Companies in all sectors continue to struggle with finding employees to fill open positions."

Last week, Calhoun Community College's Career Services hosted an Essential Workers Job Fair, with more than 35 employers looking to fill part-time and full-time vacancies.

"We hear from companies that there are people without jobs, or not participating in the workforce, but they feel the increased unemployment benefits give them too much of an incentive not to work," Nails said.

Nails said many people who have lost their jobs were lower-wage workers and they're making more with jobless benefits than when they were working.

"You also have many workers that are concerned about returning to the workplace or they have left the workforce to take care of children or other family members during the pandemic," Nails said. "I'm hopeful that labor participation rates will improve as more people are vaccinated and the enhanced unemployment benefits expire."

The latest figures show Morgan employment was at 57,593 in March, compared to 57,423 in March 2020. Employment in Limestone County was at 44,143 in March, compared to 43,726 a year ago, according to the preliminary data, and Lawrence County employment was 13,912, up slightly from 13,907 a year ago.

Bethany Shockney, president of the Limestone County Economic Development Association, noted that unemployment rates are based on those people currently looking for a job who haven't found one.

"There's a certain population not included in that because they're not currently looking for a job," she said. "We're trying to target that population of working age people who are not looking for a job."

She said there's probably a large number of people receiving coronavirus-related stimulus funds who are choosing to stay at home.

"We're in a better position than most because we're in the fastest growing county in the state so there are lot of new people moving into our community," Shockney said.

Shockney said another group "we are targeting is through our education system," like recent high school graduates enrolled in career tech programs and recent college and university graduates.

Alabama Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington announced that Alabama's preliminary, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in March was 3.8%, down from February's rate of 4%, but above the March 2020 rate of 2.6%. The rate represents 84,670 unemployed people in March, compared to 91,041 in February and 57,895 in March 2020. The national unemployment rate was 6%.

"Once again, our unemployment rate is the lowest it's been since the pandemic began." Washington said. "We're still not where we were before, but tremendous progress is being made.

"We have more jobs in March than we've had all year, and we're seeing monthly wage growth in several industries."

— marian.accardi@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438. Twitter @DD_MAccardi.