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According to the weekly unemployment report distributed by the Alabama Department of Labor (ADOL) Thursday, 64 initial jobless claims were filed in Dallas County last week, an improvement over the 79 filed during the week of Oct. 24.

The county had seen negligible increases in claims since late-September, when 71 initial claims were filed – the following week, the same number of claims were filed, but numbers inched up to 77 during the week of Oct. 10 and onward to 90 by the middle of the month.

Numbers climbed down by one between the Oct. 15 and Oct. 24 reports and the most recent report represents the first double-digit decrease in weekly claims numbers since mid-September.

Statewide, numbers also tumbled, coming in at 7,060 in the most recent report, as compared to 7,126 the week before, with more than 3,500 related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The same trend was seen nationally as the 751,000 first-time claims filed last week represented a slight decline over the previous week’s numbers, 758,000 – additionally, the number of people receiving continuing benefits fell by about 538,000, representing 7.3 million Americans still receiving unemployment assistance.

Neighboring counties continue to see mixed results, with Autauga County climbing down from 79 claims filed during the week of Oct. 24 to 73 in the most recent report and Lowndes County notching up to 18 last week from 13 during the week of Oct. 24.

In Marengo County, weekly claim numbers dropped from 30 during the week of Oct. 24 to 23 last week while Perry County’s numbers were unchanged, sitting at 11 in the most recent report and the previous one.

Wilcox County’s numbers also slid, dropping to 14 last week as compared to 23 in the previous report.

Jefferson County continues to log the highest number of weekly claims, with nearly 2,000 filed last week, and the unclassified sector of the workforce continues to make up the largest share of statewide claims, representing more than 3,100 jobs lost last week.

Other industries continuing to take a significant hit from the pandemic are the manufacturing sector, which shed more than 850 jobs last week, the remediation services sector, which lost over 600 jobs last week, the retail trade sector, which contributed 538 to last week’s claim numbers, the accommodation and food services sector, which shed 452 jobs last week, and the healthcare and social services sector, which contributed 368 of last week’s claims.