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The Alabama Department of Labor released the official count for initial claims filed during the week of May 31 – June 6, 2020
19,950 initial claims were filed either online or by telephone during this period. 12,377 of those claims are COVID-19 related.
Industries with the most number of claims are: Industry Not Available (6,461), followed by Administrative and Support Services (2,027), Food Service and Drinking Places (1,660), Transportation Equipment Manufacturing (857), General Merchandise Stores (584), and Education Services (491).
Jefferson County had the largest number of claims with 2,977 reported within the week. For Escambia County, 148 initial claims were filed during this time.
Looking back at 2019, the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program develops a monthly estimate of the labor force, employment, unemployment, and unemployment rate for all counties. During the month of April in 2019, Escambia county statistics looked very different. The labor force included 14,746, employment 14,284, unemployment 462, and the unemployment rate was 3.1%. In April of 2020, the unemployment rate for Escambia County was 11.4%. During that month, there were 1,598 initial unemployment claims.
Currently, the number of claims is drastically lower than a few months prior. However, there is no data on how many individuals of said claims accumulated over the weeks and months have returned to his or her jobs.