Escambia County’s unemployment rate was up a percentage point in January, from 10.4 percent in December, according to figures released by the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations Thursday.

The state rate went up as well, from 9.1 percent to 9.3 percent.

January’s rate represents 196,259 unemployed persons, compared to 193,158 in December 2010, and 221,768 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 DIR. “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.”

Alabama JobLink recorded 10,590 active job orders in January, which is more than any month in the past four years, with the exception of the months immediately following the Gulf Oil Spill, when a large number of temporary beach clean-up jobs were available.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to once again urge Alabamians to visit their local Career Center or log onto www.joblink.alabama.gov to take advantage of the many free job services available to them. There are currently more than 8,500 jobs available, you never know if one may be perfect for you,” Surtees said.