Morgan County unemployment rises to 10.2 percent

Morgan County’s unemployment rose two percentage from December to January, according to numbers released from the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations.

The jobless rate now stands at 10.7 percent, which represents 5,991 unemployed persons. The rate was just 8.7 percent in December with 4,867 county residents who didn’t have a job.

However, January’s unemployment was an improvement from a year ago. The rate was 11.2 percent in January 2010, representing 6,231 unemployed persons.

Alabama’s unemployment also increased from 9.1 percent to 9.3 percent, but it was 10.3 percent in January 2010.

“Although we did experience a slight increase in our January unemployment rate, we continue to see positive signs that our economy is, in fact, recovering,” said Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations. “We are paying out fewer dollars in unemployment compensation benefits for a lesser number of weeks, which shows us that people are going back to work more quickly. Also, our online jobs database currently has more active job orders than at any point since 2006, with the exception of the months following last year’s oil spill.”