WASHINGTON: The next snapshot of how many Alabamians are working and how many are unemployed is due Friday morning. The report, from the state’s Labor Department, will be for the month of June and will update the state’s unemployment rate, which has lagged behind most other states and well below the national unemployment rate.
In May Alabama’s unemployment rate was 6.1 percent. The April unemployment rate was also 6.1 percent, a slight tick down from the 6.2 percent in March. Nationally the unemployment rate is just below 5 percent. In May 132,106 Alabamians were unemployed. In April that number was 133,252, a decrease but not enough to nudge the 6.1 percent unemployed rate down.