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According to numbers released by the Alabama Department of Labor (ADOL) Friday, Dallas County’s June unemployment rate was 13.1 percent, a slight decline over May’s rate of 14.6 percent but still well over last year’s rate of 6.1 percent.

Selma, the county’s most populace city, meanwhile is experiencing an unemployment rate of 15.3 percent, putting it between Prichard, at 18.8 percent, and Bessemer and Mobile, both at 13 percent, as one of the state’s major cities facing the highest unemployment rates.

Statewide, June’s jobless rate came in at 7.5 percent, an improvement over May’s rate of 9.6 percent but still dramatically higher than last year’s rate of 2.9 percent.

The new numbers represent 165,770 unemployed persons across the state, as compared to more than 216,000 in May.

“We continue to make gains in our unemployment rate but remain above the record-low rates we were experiencing prior to this pandemic,” said ADOL Secretary Fitzgerald Washington. “People are returning to work as the economy further reopens, but we are beginning to see slight rises in the number of initial unemployment claims filed each week.”

Weekly unemployment figures showed that across the state 20,505 unemployment claims were filed last week, nearly 1,500 more than the week before, though the county saw a slight week-to-week decrease in the number of claims being filed.