Tagged: jobs

Last year new and expanding industries announced plans to create more than 20,000 jobs with investments topping $5.4 billion in Alabama.

But those numbers did not include a single new job or investment in almost a dozen of Alabama's 67 counties.

  More than 800 students from 60 colleges will be at Auburn University this weekend for a national event known as the "Landscape Olympics."

Auburn's team of 40 students will show off their skills in 28 events, including tree climbing.

The National Collegiate Landscape Competition attracts recruiters from 50 companies, including Caterpillar and John Deere. They will be at Auburn scouting for the nation's top prospects during the event.

Raytheon Co. has opened a missile production facility in Huntsville that is expected to initially create 35 new jobs.

Company officials said the new facility at Huntsville's Redstone Arsenal would eventually create 300 jobs with a combination of factory workers and other positions.

Raytheon President Taylor W. Lawrence said the factory will be the most advanced missile integration facility in the world.

Company officials said at the factory workers will complete assembly and testing of the company's missiles and interceptors.

Alabama's unemployment rate has declined for the second month to 8.1 percent.

The state Department of Industrial Relations announced Friday that October's rate is down from a revised rate of 8.2 percent in September. Alabama's unemployment rate increased for four months during the late spring and summer, hitting 8.5 percent in August before declining for the last two months.

Nearly 9,000 more Alabama residents were working in October than in the prior month.

The political consulting firm that helped Robert Bentley win the governor's office is now helping persuade voters to give him more money to lure jobs to Alabama.

Bentley is appearing in TV ads urging voters to vote yes on Amendment 2 in the election Nov. 6. The ads were done by Dresner Wickers Barber Sanders. That's a San Francisco firm that helped get across Bentley's message in 2010 that he would not draw a salary as governor until he got Alabama's high unemployment rate down to normal levels.

Alabama's unemployment rate has risen for the fourth consecutive month to 8.5 percent for August.

The figure announced Friday by the state Department of Industrial Relations represents more than 183,000 unemployed people.

Alabama's unemployment rate has been going up since measuring 7.2 percent in April. It was 7.4 percent in May, 7.8 percent in June and 8.3 percent in July.

Alabama's unemployment rate a year ago was 9.1 percent.

The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to add around 100 jobs at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in the next year.

The plan, announced Wednesday, is part of an effort to improve performance and safety.

TVA chief nuclear officer Preston Swafford says officials will probably start the hiring process in a couple of months.

Keith Polson, Browns Ferry site vice president, says the new jobs will involve various specialties such as engineering, maintenance, radiation protection, chemistry, work control and emergency planning.