Birmingham’s job engine is spreading beyond Jefferson County. The question is who is ready to catch it.

Birmingham’s core counties already carry a sizable job base, and a set of announced projects and public investments point toward more activity in logistics, manufacturing and biotech. The unresolved question for investors and local leaders is whether that growth will remain concentrated in Jefferson and Shelby Counties, or begin to diffuse into neighboring counties along the region’s major corridors.

What is actually happening in the Birmingham-area economy

On the ground, Jefferson County remains the region’s economic anchor. It supports 367,081 covered jobs and 22,923 business establishments as of 2024, with an average weekly wage of $1,376. ¹¹¹ Shelby County is the second-largest employment center, with 85,169 covered jobs across 7,251 establishments and an average weekly wage of $1,284. ²²²

Beyond those two, employment falls off but is still meaningful for a multi-county labor market. St. Clair County has 21,980 covered jobs and 1,943 establishments, with average weekly pay of $989. ³³³ Walker County supports 18,709 covered jobs and 1,536 establishments, with wages averaging $936 a week. ⁴⁴⁴ Blount and Chilton Counties each support just over 9,000 covered jobs, while Bibb County has 4,828. ⁵⁶⁷ Their business-establishment counts range from 445 in Bibb to 956 in Blount and 922 in Chilton. ⁷⁵⁶ Average weekly wages in these smaller counties run between $879 in Blount and $1,020 in Bibb. ⁵⁷⁶

Several specific projects add to this base. In logistics, the State of Alabama reports that four new Amazon operational sites in Huntsville, Montgomery and Birmingham are expected to create over 900 jobs at new facilities statewide. ⁸ Within that set, a Birmingham Delivery Station is expected to employ approximately 150 people and, according to the state, create indirect job opportunities through delivery partners. ⁸

In manufacturing, the state has also announced that The J.M. Smucker Co. plans a manufacturing facility in the Jefferson County community of McCalla, with a total stated investment of $1.1 billion. The facility is described as a three-phase project that, if fully built and staffed as announced, would create up to 750 jobs, with investment and hiring tied to production milestones. ⁹ The company and state indicated that construction was expected to begin no later than January 2022, with production targeted for calendar year 2025. ⁹ These investment and job figures are explicitly contingent on tax and business incentives and on the closing of the property purchase, so they should be treated as an announced plan rather than a completed outcome. ⁹

On the research and technology side, the federal Economic Development Administration describes the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub as an effort to combine biotechnology with advanced data and AI tools to build a stronger U.S. foundation for drug discovery and next-generation medicines. ¹⁰ The hub is led by the Birmingham Bio Innovation Corporation and is said to draw on regional strengths in clinicogenomic data, human-relevant testing systems and applied machine learning to improve how potential treatments are identified, evaluated and prepared for development. ¹⁰ The agency states that, by integrating these capabilities into a coordinated system, the hub aims to make drug discovery more efficient, more predictive and more representative of patient populations, while strengthening infrastructure for new medicines, supporting biotech entrepreneurs and expanding the technical workforce. ¹⁰¹⁰

UAB is another visible piece of the capital and employment picture. The university reports that new research buildings and renovations are bringing state-of-the-art technology to campus, supporting both the retention of existing investigators and hiring of new ones, and opening up additional private and public funding opportunities. ¹¹ Separately, UAB Hospital notes that it has 1,400 beds and that a new inpatient rehabilitation pavilion, with 134 patient beds and a cost of $156.7 million, is part of an expansion described by state leadership as an investment in vital public services. ¹²¹²¹² Those projects do not come with explicit job counts in the supplied evidence, but they do represent sizable institutional spending in the core of the Birmingham labor market.

How local government is trying to channel that growth

The City of Birmingham’s Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity describes its role as shaping the city’s future by connecting people, businesses, assets and opportunities to markets and investments that drive sustainable growth. The department states that it works to strengthen homegrown businesses, attract and retain high-growth industries, cultivate a skilled and competitive workforce, and position Birmingham for new investment and development. ¹³ It also says it concentrates resources where they have the highest multiplier effect, namely on businesses ready to scale and industries ready to invest. ¹³

On the resident side, the department explicitly commits to building pathways toward economic mobility so that city growth translates into “tangible opportunities for every neighborhood.” ¹³ One practical example it gives is the Birmingham Workforce Partner Accelerator, a six-month program launched to help nonprofits, startups and community-based organizations build scalable, fundable workforce development programs aimed at strengthening the economy and creating opportunities for residents. ¹³

Why these projects and institutions matter for the broader region

In employment terms, Jefferson and Shelby Counties together account for the bulk of formal jobs in the evidence set: roughly 450,000 covered jobs combined, compared with smaller but still material bases in St. Clair, Walker, Blount, Chilton and Bibb Counties. ^1234567 If announced projects like the Smucker facility in McCalla are built and staffed at the levels described, they would add hundreds of jobs at a single site in Jefferson County. ⁹ The Amazon delivery station in Birmingham, if it reaches its planned 150 employees, is smaller but reinforces logistics as a lane for local employment. ⁸

Public and institutional investments in UAB’s research facilities, hospital capacity and the federally designated biotechnology hub occupy a different but related lane. UAB’s documentation links new research buildings and renovated facilities to an expanded research portfolio, retention and hiring of investigators, and additional access to external funding. ¹¹ The EDA’s description of the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub emphasizes both the technical infrastructure for drug discovery and the goal of expanding the region’s technical workforce and biotech entrepreneurship base. ¹⁰¹⁰¹⁰ If those efforts translate into sustained hiring, they could deepen the city’s specialization in health care and life sciences, potentially complementing manufacturing and logistics growth rather than replacing it.

At the same time, wage levels in the surrounding counties point to a region where pay varies by location. Jefferson and Shelby Counties show higher average weekly wages, at $1,376 and $1,284 respectively, than nearby St. Clair ($989), Walker ($936), Chilton ($915), Blount ($879) and even Bibb, which, despite its smaller job base, posts a $1,020 weekly average. ^1234657 If new investment and institutional growth stay concentrated in the highest-wage counties, the risk is that opportunities and earnings remain unevenly distributed across the metro area.

What could follow if announced plans turn into jobs

If the Smucker facility reaches its announced target of up to 750 jobs over three phases, concentrated in McCalla, that single plant would be roughly equivalent to adding a mid-sized employer to Jefferson County’s industrial base. ⁹¹ Depending on hiring patterns and commuting, that could draw workers from St. Clair, Walker, Bibb and possibly Chilton, increasing cross-county labor flows. This is a reasonable inference, not a documented outcome.

Similarly, if the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub and UAB’s research expansion successfully attract additional federal and private research funding, the local effect may include more specialized lab and data jobs in the city and surrounding counties. ¹⁰¹⁰¹¹ That could, in turn, create demand for supporting services—from specialized suppliers to housing—near the medical and research districts. The evidence here is about institutional strategy and capital projects; the resulting job and real estate effects are not yet quantified.

The city’s Workforce Partner Accelerator is designed to give nonprofits, startups and community organizations tools to build workforce programs that meet this kind of demand. ¹³ If those programs align with the needs of logistics operators, manufacturers and biotech employers, they may help residents in lower-wage counties connect to higher-paying roles. Again, that is a conditional scenario: the documentation confirms the program’s existence and goals, not its long-term impact.

Execution risks and open questions

Several of the most attention-grabbing numbers in the region’s story are tied to announcements, not completed projects. The Smucker investment and job totals are contingent on incentives and successful completion of a multi-phase construction and production plan. ⁹⁹ The timeline for starting construction and commencing production was laid out in 2021, but the evidence provided here does not confirm whether those milestones were met on the announced schedule. ⁹ Likewise, the Amazon delivery station job count is an approximate figure reported by the state, not a verified current headcount. ⁸

The Birmingham Biotechnology Hub’s goals for more efficient, predictive and representative drug discovery, as well as its intent to expand the technical workforce and support entrepreneurs, are described by the EDA. ¹⁰¹⁰¹⁰ The evidence does not yet quantify how many jobs or companies have resulted from this designation, so any claims about its realized impact on employment or real estate would be speculative.

On the policy side, the city’s economic development department clearly articulates a focus on sustainable growth, high-multiplier investments and neighborhood-level opportunity. ¹³¹³¹³ But the supplied material does not provide metrics for outcomes such as the number of businesses assisted, jobs placed, or specific neighborhoods affected. That limits how far we can go in assessing the department’s track record, beyond describing its stated strategies and programs.

What to watch next

• Smucker facility build-out: Verified updates on whether all three phases in McCalla are under construction or operating, the actual capital deployed and the number of jobs filled relative to the “up to 750” plan. ⁹⁹⁹
• Amazon hiring in Birmingham: Evidence on whether the Birmingham Delivery Station reaches or exceeds its approximate 150-employee target and whether additional logistics facilities follow. ⁸
• Biotech hub outcomes: Concrete metrics on jobs created, startups formed, and external funding captured by the Birmingham Biotechnology Hub and related UAB research expansions. ^10101011
• Wage and employment shifts by county: Changes over time in covered employment and average weekly wages in Jefferson, Shelby and neighboring counties to see whether new projects narrow or widen the regional gap. ^1234657
• Workforce program results: Data on participation, completions and job placements tied to the Birmingham Workforce Partner Accelerator and other city-led efforts, especially for residents in lower-wage counties. ¹³

Those indicators will determine whether today’s combination of institutional expansion, announced industrial projects and workforce programs composes a self-reinforcing growth story for greater Birmingham, or remains a set of isolated wins concentrated in the existing core.