Alabama set another record for payroll jobs in April, but the state’s labor force participation rate fell to 57.3%, remaining 4.5 percentage points below the national rate, according to preliminary state and federal labor data.
The Alabama Department of Workforce said Friday that the state’s preliminary, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked up to 2.8% in April, up from 2.7% in March but below the 2.9% rate recorded a year earlier. The rate represents 67,115 unemployed Alabamians, compared with 65,467 in March and 69,951 in April 2025.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis showed Alabama’s seasonally adjusted labor force participation rate fell from 57.5% in March to 57.3% in April. Nationally, the labor force participation rate was 61.8%…