Alabama’s September unemployment rate continues to hold steady at its all-time record low.

According to the Alabama Department of Labor, the state’s preliminary unemployment rate for September was 2.6%, unchanged since May. A year ago at this time, the state’s rate was 3.2%.

The national unemployment rate was 3.5% for September.

”Despite the uncertainty facing the U.S. economy, Alabama has managed to add 50,000 new jobs since September of 2021 and is on pace to break its previous record for yearly job growth,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “Our efforts continue to yield encouraging results, and I’m looking forward to working with our public and private partners to make Alabama an even better place to live, work and raise a family.”

According to the department, wage and salary employment have increased by 53,800 over the last year. The state has seen gains of more than 15,000 jobs in the education and health services sector, almost 11,000 in the professional and business services sector and better than 7,800 in manufacturing since this time a year ago.

Alabama Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington said the state is within about 10,000 jobs of the all-time year-over-year job growth mark.

Counties with the lowest unemployment rates were Shelby County at 1.8% and Marshall and Cullman counties at 2%. Vestavia Hills, Homewood and Trussville all had unemployment rates of less than 1.7%.

Wilcox County had the highest unemployment rate at 9%, while Selma was the highest city at 7.3%.