Most sample surveys are designed to estimate reliable statistics for the whole population and for some large subpopulations. However, the research for small area estimation have been increasing in recent years because users demand to reliable estimates for smaller subpopulations like small areas or specific domains. In Korea, the Economically Active Population Survey(EAPS) is the main household survey that produces monthly unemployment rates for nationwide and 16 large areas (7 metropolitans and 9 provinces) in Korea. For county level estimation, direct estimators are not reliable because of the small sample sizes. We consider small area estimation of the county level unemployment ratesfrom the sample observations in EAPS. To do this, we use an area level model to "borrow strength" from the auxiliary information, such as administrative data and census data. The proposed method is based on the assumption of normality of the model errors in the area level model. The proposed method is compared with the other alternatives in terms of the estimated mean squared errors.