{"id":286472,"date":"2025-06-10T20:21:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T20:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alabama\/birmingham-lets-declare-a-jobs-war\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T20:21:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T20:21:36","slug":"birmingham-lets-declare-a-jobs-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=286472","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham: Let\u2019s declare a jobs war"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\"Don<\/a>
Don Erwin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s guest columnist is Don Erwin.<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems like only yesterday the City of Birmingham<\/strong> lost its title as \u201cAlabama\u2019s largest city.\u201d Now, according to the latest census numbers, Huntsville has 34,000 more people<\/strong><\/span><\/a> than Birmingham.<\/p>\n

It seems like only yesterday that Hoover<\/strong>, the Metro\u2019s second-largest city, was a dynamic, growing suburb, but during 2020-2024, Hoover gained less than 4\/10ths of one percent<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in population.<\/p>\n

How time flies when you\u2019re falling behind.<\/p>\n

The Birmingham Metro accounts for 23% of Alabama\u2019s population, but in 2024, the Birmingham Metro accounted for just 17.75%<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of the state\u2019s announced jobs from new companies. Four of the seven Birmingham Metro counties announced no new companies.<\/p>\n

This is not a one-year anomaly. For the years 2012-2024, the Birmingham Metro accounted for just 15.36%<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of the state\u2019s announced jobs from new companies.<\/p>\n

Poor job growth leads to poor population growth.<\/p>\n

During 2020-2024, the Auburn-Opelika Metro with 206,000 people added 11,678 people<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. The Birmingham Metro, with almost 1.2 million people, added just 10,767 people<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. The Huntsville Metro, with less than half the Birmingham Metro population, added 47,561 people<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Birmingham\u2019s still the largest Metro in Alabama, but that\u2019s living on past glory and of doubtful importance. Would you rather live in Switzerland or India?<\/p>\n

There are many downsides to poor job growth. For Birmingham Metro citizens looking for good jobs, it means not as many are available. For people looking for a place to build a career and raise a family, it means they look for places with more opportunity.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the crazy thing: We\u2019re doing good things to create and attract new jobs. Our business startup efforts have produced results. Jefferson County and the other metro counties are developing industrial parks. We\u2019re just not doing enough.<\/p>\n

The Birmingham Business Alliance<\/strong><\/span><\/a> (BBA) is the regional organization responsible for Birmingham\u2019s economic development efforts. I\u2019ve reviewed BBA\u2019s business plan. It\u2019s a good one. I\u2019ve talked with its people. They\u2019re competent and enthusiastic. They\u2019re ready to fully execute if they have proper funding.<\/p>\n

Last fall, I wrote that BBA<\/strong><\/span><\/a> has about one-fourth the staffing of the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission and one-half the staffing of the Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau. We fully fund planning and tourism attraction efforts, why not efforts to attract new jobs and companies?<\/p>\n

Birmingham has some unique (for Alabama) job-attraction challenges. Jefferson and Shelby counties have office buildings with two million square feet<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of vacant space. If a photo of downtown Birmingham were photoshopped to reflect the actual occupancy of the tall towers, downtown Birmingham would look a lot \u201cflatter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building owners will tell you their new tenants almost always come from within the Metro, rather than elsewhere. Instead of growing the pie, we\u2019re just shuffling the pie slices.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t depend on others to bring us jobs. The Alabama Department of Commerce is mostly focused on putting traditional manufacturing companies into traditional industrial parks. They\u2019re not going to help find prospects for our vacant office space. A special team to identify and recruit office-space-using companies must be created. That takes funding.<\/p>\n

BBA estimates it would take an additional $1.5-$2.0 million\/year to fully fund their hunt for new jobs and companies.<\/p>\n

Currently, BBA is funded about 80% by area companies and 20% by area governments. In many metros, the split is more typically 50-50. Metro Birmingham governments should step up.<\/p>\n

I recently talked with a city official who wondered if their city could afford to contribute more to BBA\u2019s economic development efforts.<\/p>\n

My answer: If you focus on generating good jobs for your citizens, there will be plenty of money for your city\u2019s needs, because people with good jobs and new companies generate plenty of sales and property and other tax revenue.<\/p>\n

Jim Clifton, the Chairman of the Gallup organization, has written<\/strong><\/span><\/a>: \u201cMayors and leaders of every city, town, and village\u2026must realize that every decision they make should consider the impact, first and foremost, on good jobs\u2026 Everybody in charge of anything needs to focus on job creation. If they divert their attention, vote them out\u2026 The jobs war is what should get city leaders up in the morning, what they should work on all day, and what should keep them from getting to sleep at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are lots of things easier to do than recruiting new companies and jobs. But when the Titanic is sinking, you don\u2019t paint the deck chairs.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s adequately fund economic development. We can either take action, or we can wait for the 2025 Commerce Department report and see us falling further behind.<\/p>\n

Time is passing us by. It\u2019s time for leaders to be leaders.<\/p>\n

Don Erwin was an economic developer for twelve years. He is the author of Buffalo Hunting in Alabama<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, a novel about the competition among cities and states to attract economic development projects. He lives in the Birmingham metro.<\/em><\/p>\n

David Sher is the founder and publisher of\u00a0ComebackTown<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here to sign up for our newsletter.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.con<\/p>\n

(Visited 175 times, 175 visits today)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Erwin Today\u2019s guest columnist is Don Erwin. It seems like only yesterday the City of Birmingham lost its title as \u201cAlabama\u2019s largest city.\u201d Now, according to the latest census numbers, Huntsville has 34,000 more people than Birmingham. It seems like only yesterday that Hoover, the Metro\u2019s second-largest city, was a dynamic, growing suburb, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11763],"tags":[13518,62426,11011,11249,3739],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-286472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alabama","tag-birmingham","tag-declare","tag-jobs","tag-lets","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\nBirmingham: Let\u2019s declare a jobs war - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=286472\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Birmingham: Let\u2019s declare a jobs war - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Don Erwin Today\u2019s guest columnist is Don Erwin. 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