Job openings in Alabama are on the rise, especially for nurses, retail workers and truck drivers.

In 2024, the state’s employers added more than 25,000 jobs, the Alabama Department of Workforce said in an announcement earlier this week.

“This means that employers remain confident in our job market and are continuing to expand their businesses,” said Greg Reed, Alabama’s secretary of workforce, in a statement.

The employers who posted the most online job ads in Alabama in January are:

1. Huntsville Hospital: 1,041 ads
2. UAB Medicine: 799 ads
3. Taco Bell: 736 ads
4. Walmart: 713 ads
5. Jack’s Family Restaurants: 519 ads
6. Domino’s Pizza: 475 ads
7. Baptist Health: 386 ads
8. Circle K: 329 ads
9. Arby’s: 329 ads
10. Walgreens: 327 ads

More than 82,500 job ads were active online across the state in January – up nearly 15% from the previous month, according to the most recent data from the Alabama Department of Workforce.

Jonathan McNair, public information officer for the workforce department, said one reason for the uptick in job postings is that employers are anticipating seasonal changes as tourism picks up.

“A lot of restaurant and hospitality postings, that’s for spring break and summer seasons,” he said. “Those people need to stop at the gas stations, they stop at the fast food places along I-65, and those companies know they’re going to need a lot more employees to handle those folks.”

McNair also noted population growth in Alabama’s metros, especially Huntsville.

“That growth comes with the need of more people in drugstores, needing more people in retail stores, needing more people in the restaurants that are needed to serve all these new Alabamians that have come here to join us,” he said.

Other jobs with the most openings in January included fast food and counter workers and food service managers.

Nearly 27,500 of those jobs were salaried, according to the workforce department:

• 29% of them paid $70,000 or more
• 17% paid between $50,000 and $69,000
• 26% of them offered pay ranging between $35,000 and $49,000
• 28% of job ads had salaries below $35,000, according to the state agency.

But where are the candidates to fill these jobs? During January, the state had nearly 78,300 residents who were unemployed. That’s an unemployment rate of 3.3%, which stayed flat from the previous month and rose from the rate of 2.9% a year earlier.

Alabama’s unemployment rate is lower than the national rate, which was 4% in January.

The counties with the lowest unemployment rates in January, according to the workforce department, were:

• Shelby County (2.7%)
• Elmore, Limestone, Marshall and St. Clair Counties (2.8%)
• and Madison, Lee and Morgan Counties at 2.9%.

Three Black Belt counties reported the highest unemployment rates: Greene County (9.1%), Wilcox County (6.9%), and Perry County (6.6%).

Alabama has 57 career centers that work to connect residents with jobs and companies with talent, McNair pointed out.

“If you’re an employer, and you’re struggling to find employees and your online ads aren’t netting the results that you want, you can also reach out to that local career center,” he said. “They’re able to organize job fairs and they’re in contact with the people that you would need to fill those positions at your company.”

The state’s labor force participation rate in January stood at nearly 58%, Reed said. That includes more than three out of four prime-age workers – those who are 25 to 54 years old.

“We will continue our efforts to increase this number overall, by increasing training opportunities and targeting populations that have traditionally been marginalized when it comes to labor force participation,” Reed said.