Birmingham Business Climate

Alabama’s population center, the Birmingham Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) anchors the business and cultural life of the State of Alabama. A deliberate plan by business leaders to wean the area’s economy away from its traditional dependence on iron and steel has resulted in a well-diversified business sector. Birmingham is a center for finance, health care, education, manufacturing, research, engineering, transportation, construction and distribution. Fortune 500 companies, including Regions Financial, Saks and Sonat, have headquarters in Birmingham, which has fostered a well-rounded business community that continues to attract major companies to the area. Moreover, Birmingham serves as headquarters for seven of the country’s top performing companies on the elite Forbes 500 list. SouthTrust, another large bank headquartered in Birmingham, was acquired by Wachovia in 2004, and still maintains major operations in the city as one of the regional headquarters of Wachovia. In November of 2006, Regions Financial merged with AmSouth Bancorporation, forming the eighth-largest U.S. Bank.

Recently, Birmingham has seen substantial growth in the technology sector. The area is home to the State of Alabama's Center for Advanced Technology and the largest nonprofit independent research laboratory in the Southeast, Southern Research Institute, which has developed four anti-cancer drugs currently used worldwide. Furthermore, Birmingham is home to HealthSouth Corporation, the nation's largest provider of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging and rehabilitation healthcare services. Currently HealthSouth, in conjunction with software giant Oracle Corporation, is constructing the world's first all-digital, automated hospital on the HealthSouth campus. The $300 million medical center is expected to be completed in 2005.

Additionally, Birmingham is among the top medical cities in the country and is the leading southeastern healthcare services city. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) ranks among the top medical centers in securing federal research and development funds and is the Southeast's leader in medical science and life science. The new $90 million Inter disciplinary Biomedical Research Institute, scheduled for completion in late 2005, is expected to propel UAB onto the prestigious list of top 10 biomedical research centers.

Birmingham's manufacturing industry has grown substantially since Mercedes-Benz U.S. International's relocation to the area. Mercedes-Benz is undergoing a $600 million expansion that, once completed in 2005, will manufacture up to 160,000 vehicles annually and employ 4,000, with a total capital investment of more than $1 billion. In April 2002, another major automobile manufacturer, Hyundai Motor Company, announced that it would open a new plant in Montgomery County, with as many as 3,000 cars produced annually, start- ing in 2,005. The $1 billion plant will provide an estim- ated 4,000 new jobs for the Alabama economy. Distribution also continues to be a major growth sector in the local economy, with over 30 industrial parks in operation. Total employment in the Birmingham MSA is approximately 542,974. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approx- imately 30,000 jobs were added to the Birmingham area from 1996 to 2001. During the past decade, the Birmingham MSA has experienced low annual unemployment rates, with the April 2007 rate at 2.4 percent, well below the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.3 percent in April 2007.