Nearly a third of all new jobs announced across the state last year went to a single county in south Alabama, according to a new report.
The state’s economic development successes last year included announcements of more than 8,500 new jobs, per the New & Expanding Industry Announcements report released by the Alabama Department of Commerce on Monday. That figure is up slightly from the previous year.
Mobile County was by far the biggest winner in 2024 with the promise of 2,553 new jobs, according to the report.
“We were not surprised,” said Bradley Byrne, the president and CEO of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce,. “It’s great to have several different sectors that are all growing at the same time. It’s very, very good, very healthy.”
In an interview with AL.com, Byrne pointed to shipyard jobs as a key driver of that growth last year, along with other sectors like chemical companies and the logistics industry, tied to the container terminal at the Port of Mobile.
Most of those new jobs came from expansions for two Austal USA projects, adding nearly 2,200 jobs combined – or 86% of the county’s new jobs last year.
One of those projects involved the Australian company adding another waterfront assembly facility to its shipyard. Austal also broke ground last year on a submarine parts manufacturing building to help support the U.S. Navy. Those two expansions totaled more than $740 million in capital investment, per the report.
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“The results for 2024 prove that Alabama’s economy is strong, competitive and primed for future growth,” Ellen McNair, the state Secretary of Commerce, said in the report. “Together, we’ll keep driving growth, creating jobs and ensuring a bright future for every Alabamian.”
Mobile County claimed 30% of the state’s total new jobs last year.
And so far, that job growth is continuing in 2025: Mobile County claimed 1,200 new jobs just in the first quarter of this year, Byrne said.
Many of those are shipyard jobs, both along Mobile River as well as in Bayou La Batre. Byrne also noted new manufacturing jobs and a $1.2 billion investment in a new steel mill tied to the electric vehicle industry by Luxembourg company ArcelorMittal’s.
Byrne added that local industry hasn’t seemed to experience negative impacts from tariffs so far. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico, as well as steel and aluminum. And on Wednesday, President Trump announced a new 25% tariff on imported cars.
“We’re concerned, you know,” Byrne said. “We stay in very close touch with both our existing industry and the new industry coming here. So far, it’s not slowing anything down. We’re proceeding on whatever happens in Washington doesn’t really matter.”
Here are the top counties for new jobs announced in 2024.
- Mobile County: 2,553
- Madison County: 960
- Jefferson County: 682
- Montgomery County: 497
- Lee County: 496
- Houston County: 280
Nearly 1,700 of those new job commitments — or about 19% — were in Alabama’s rural counties, according to the report. The industries include aviation training, auto parts production, solar panel manufacturing and forest products.
For instance, one single project created nearly 250 jobs in Lawrence County through the expansion of Lockheed Martin’s operations in Courtland, where the defense company assembles missiles.
These are the top rural counties in Alabama for new jobs announced in 2024.
- Lawrence County: 244
- Chambers County: 155
- Cleburne County: 135
- Coosa County: 130
- Clarke County: 114
- Covington County: 110
Those commitments for new jobs were tacked on to new capital investments across the state, totaling more than $7 billion.
Nearly half of the more than 8,500 promised jobs weren’t in a categorized industry, but instead listed as “other” on the report. Other top industries included automotive, distribution/logistics/warehouse, and aerospace and aviation.
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