Emily Jerkins is Director of Research for the Birmingham Business Alliance.
Job numbers are up in Birmingham.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, total jobs in the Birmingham metro amounted to 553,000, up 1.7 percent year-over-year as of November 2019. This ranked Birmingham No. 44 among the top 100 metros in the country.
This growing number of jobs is good news for the Birmingham region’s workforce, which grew to 561,300 workers as of November 2019, up 2.6 percent year-over-year. This increase tied Birmingham at No. 26 of the top 100 metros.
Jerkins
In more good news for the region’s workforce, the unemployment rate across the metro is down to 2.2 percent, so low that Birmingham comes in at the eighth lowest unemployment rate among the top 100 metros.
Employed residents in the Birmingham metro reached 548,800 in October 2019, up 3.8 percent year‐over‐year, ranking Birmingham second only to Raleigh, North Carolina amongst its peers. Birmingham ranked No. 10 among the top 100 metros for employed resident worker growth. This points to jobs at companies outside of the region – such as Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Honda Manufacturing of Alabama and remote jobs – growing faster than job opportunities in the Birmingham region for employed residents.
These numbers are positive for the participating workforce, but the continued low unemployment rate indicates a tightening labor market, reemphasizing the importance of increased workforce participation and talent retention and attraction efforts. As the Birmingham Business Alliance begins to implement its new strategic framework this year, continuing to both grow job numbers and find skilled, qualified hires to fill those positions will remain priorities for the work we do.