Alabama jobless rate at 4.3%, lowest of pandemic March 15, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's unemployment rate for January declined to 4.3%, the lowest level since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic a year ago, the state said Monday. While still well above the pre-pandemic level of 2.7% of January 2020, the rate was better than the revised December unemployment rate of 4.7%. It was also below the U.S. unemployment rate of 6.3% for the month, and Department of Labor said. Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington said the drop to a new low level of joblessness for the pandemic was encouraging. “While we are still not where we were before this year of massive change, we are making progress," he said in a statement. "More people were employed this month, and fewer were unemployed, which is always good news.”