Approximately 450,000 Alabama residents have filed for unemployment since businesses began shutting down due to coronavirus concerns some two moths ago – that, according to Alabama Department of Labor statistics released Thursday.  A little less than 30,000 Alabamians filed initial unemployment claims last week, including 19,452 claims related to the pandemic – bringing the running total of Alabamians who filed for unemployment since the coronavirus crisis began to 447,990.

However those latest figures show initial claims are rapidly decreasing from two weeks ago with 64% less claims filed last week than the 74,966 initial claims filed during the week of April 25th.  Unclassified jobs represented the majority of last week’s initial claims with a total of 8,523 filed.  Manufacturing was the hardest hit category with 5,228 claims, followed by accommodation and food services with 2,994 and retail trade with 2,294.

(AL.COM/www.al.com)