Tuscaloosa Unemployment Falls, Still Lagging Pre-Pandemic Levels

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The Tuscaloosa metropolitan area continues to see sustained improvement with respect to unemployment totals, according to preliminary data released this week by the Alabama Department of Labor.

For Tuscaloosa County, unemployment fell to 3.9% in February from 4.3% in January, with its civilian labor force listed at 101,836 people — also marking an improvement. What's more, the city of Tuscaloosa also saw a boost, as its unemployment dropped to 4.9% last month from 5.3% in January.

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However, despite gains from the pandemic-induced economic crisis, unemployment is still substantially higher than this time last year when unemployment was at 2.6% for the city in February 2020.

The entire Tuscaloosa metropolitan area reported numbers in line with trends for the county seat and county, improving to 4.1% in February from 4.4% the previous month. The metro logged a civilian labor force of 115,409 in February, with 4,687 of those out of work.

The city of Northport, the 21st largest city in the state and second-largest in Tuscaloosa County, reported unemployment of 3%, signaling an improvement from January's 3.3%.

Northport's labor force came in at 13,540 in February, down slightly from January as 403 people were listed as being out of work in the city.

The state of Alabama saw slightly different trends, with its unemployment coming in at 4% for February, which is up slightly from 3.9% unemployment reported in December the last time the state published its unemployment figures. Alabama is still outperforming the national unemployment rate 6.2% in February.

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