Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. lifted his hands in the air and did a little twirling dance when he heard the news.

The smile broke across his face and wouldn’t leave.

“I hadn’t heard the numbers yet,” he said. “I knew they were coming out soon.

I’d been waiting on them.’

The numbers that had Selma’s mayor dancing were announced this week: Dallas County Alabama broke the 10 percent unemployment barrier for the first time in a decade.

The news had more than Selma’s mayor dancing.

“We finally made single digits,” Probate Judge Johnny Jones said. “That’s great news.”

According to statistics released by the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations, Dallas County had a 9.4 percent unemployment rate in December and a preliminary 9.8 percent in January.

“We’ve always said it was going to track down below 10 (percent),” Centre of Commerce Executive Director Wayne Vardaman said. “It’s the culmination of a lot of people’s hard work. Everybody’s just trying to work together, the private sector and the public sector working together. The biggest thing now is it’s so crucial we continue to work on workforce development.”

Jones agreed.

“It takes a lot of work but you’ve got to give a real plus to the economic development group,” Jones said. “The folks out at Craig and the South Dallas Park they’re working at it all the time.”

For comparison, the preliminary numbers for January 2004 were 10.6 percent.

Vardaman said the numbers have been tracking at about a percentage less than last year for awhile.

Maybe the most exciting news for Dallas County residents is that many of the announced economic expansions and new industries are not yet fully on line.

“These figures came before we had Renosol fully operational, before Lear/Kyungshin

was up and running and before Lockheed Martin considered coming here,” Perkins said. “I feel these numbers will keep pushing downward.”

Vardaman said most of the credit goes to existing industries like H-LA, Meadowcraft and Bush Hog who have expanded in the last year.

Also last week, LP Wood Polymers announced a $14 million expansion that will provide 20 more jobs to the community.

“People are always saying we need to do something,” Perkins said. “Well, we are.”

Vardaman said that a low unemployment number isn’t the goal, it’s a byproduct.

“We’re just shooting to get as many companies and acquire as many jobs as we can,” he said.