Posts Tagged ‘economic development’

What we’re reading: The Legacy of a Cotton Culture

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Larry Lee is the director of the Center for Rural Alabama and a good friend to APP.  He can always be counted on to give me feedback on our APP newsletter, and I appreciate his honesty.

That honesty is readily apparent in his must-read account of Alabama’s economic development history, The Legacy of a Cotton Culture.  He has a great deal of insight into why Alabama has the second greatest job loss in the country.

During the first half of the 1900s, Alabama tried to join the “New South” by looking at New England and chanting, “Cheap labor, cheap land, low taxes.”  And for awhile, we were awash in cotton and garment industry jobs.  But those days are gone.

In 1949 the good citizens of Andalusia thought the factory whistle would blow until Gabriel blew his horn.  But it fell silent 20 years ago.  Today across Alabama, buildings where workers once breathed cotton dust and risked arms and hands, stand empty only to be visited by the occasional school boy hurling rocks to break out another window.  And low-slung buildings where sewing machines once whirred watch as kudzu creeps across empty parking lots.

Today there are 23 counties where unemployment is 14 percent or higher.  All are rural.

They had 19,000 textile jobs in 1950 and 334,300 acres of cotton.

For decades, the future was no farther than getting to the end of the next cotton row or putting the mule in the barn as sun set.  The children of sharecroppers were far more likely to hear the rasp of a cotton pick sack being dragged on sandy soil than the ringing of a school bell.

This is the first part of a three-part series.  I can’t wait to read the next installment.

Posted by Kristina Scott

Alabama the second biggest loser of jobs in the nation

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Alabama is the second biggest loser of jobs in the nation. (Michigan is the first.) According to US Department of Labor reports, the last time we had so few people working was in 1993.

Why?  Alabama leaders have long promoted low-skill, low-wage, non-union workers as our state’s primary draw for employers. As a result our economy depends on industries such as lumber, construction, and textile manufacturing to employ our workers. Yet in the current recession, these industries have declined steeply since 2007.

Meanwhile, higher-skilled jobs in car manufacturing and professional services are going to our neighbors in Tennessee and Georgia.

One explanation? Low educational attainment. Alabama’s high school drop out rate is over 39 percent, and only 23.1 percent of Alabamians have a bachelor’s degree. Our college enrollment rate has “dropped by double digits since the early 1990s.” According to the Southern Education Foundation, if more Alabamians had high school diplomas and college degrees, Alabama could attract more employers from a wider array of industries, including high-skilled manufacturing and professional services sectors.

The good news: as bleak as these numbers are, some cities in Alabama are showing notable job growth. A Moody’s index reported by The Economist ranks several Alabama towns as job hot spots. In a list of 384 metropolitan areas, Huntsville ranked number one in potential job growth, followed by the Auburn-Opelika area in second, Columbus-Phenix city seventh, and Mobile twelfth.

An Economist map of Alabama jobs shows growth in metro Huntsville, Auburn, Phenix City, and Mobile

These areas have attracted jobs by focusing on high-skill, high-wage jobs. Huntsville earns its number one slot thanks to the defense and aerospace industries; Auburn has a thriving university; Phenix City has the Kia plant and Fort Benning; and Mobile benefits from ongoing Katrina reconstruction and the ThyssenKrupp elevator plant.  These cities have also been able to take advantage of funding from the federal stimulus package.

In order to remain competitive, we need to develop a skilled workforce.  That’s why APP created the Blueprints college access program to equip Alabama high school students to attend college and compete for the jobs of tomorrow.

Posted by Robyn Hyden

Low literacy rate is bad business

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

The Birmingham News followed up their analysis of Alabama’s low literacy rate amongst high college students with an examination of how it affects the business climate.  And, no surprise, they found that it is bad for busienss.

Read the full story here.