Butler County’s unemployment rate dropped slightly in August, according to figures released from the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations.

In August, Butler County’s unemployment rate was 12.7 percent, down from 13.1 percent in July. That’s a difference of 43 jobs.

“Sixty-three of 67 counties saw their unemployment rates drop or remain the same this month,” said Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations.

The state as a whole didn’t fare as well.

Alabama’s unemployment rate rose slightly from 8.3 percent to 8.5 percent.

Those figures represent 183,315 unemployed Alabamians.

“While the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased over the previous month, we saw fewer unemployment compensation claims filed during the same time period and continued to see record numbers of job openings posted on Joblink,” Surtees said.

Joblink (www.joblink.alabama.gov) is the state’s free online jobs database.

In August 19,327 new unemployment claims were filed statewide.

Counties with the lowest unemployment rates are Shelby County at 5.8 percent, Coffee County at 7.1 percent, Blount County at 7.2 percent, Limestone County 7.2 percent and Madison County at 7.2 percent.

Wilcox County has the state’s highest unemployment rate at 19.2 percent, while Bullock County and Dallas County have unemployment rates of 17.1 percent and 16.6 percent, respectively.

Crenshaw County’s unemployment rate is 8 percent, which is down from 8.5 percent in July, and Lowndes County’s unemployment rate is 14.6 percent, which is down from 16.5 percent.