After hitting a low for the decade earlier this year, employment in “The Shoals” area in northwestern Alabama has ticked up. The metro area saw its August unemployment rate fall from 11.1 percent last year to 8.8 percent this year, the second-biggest decline among US metro areas. Florence has a bustling tourism industry with annual festivals and museums. With its long history of music – Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and many others have recorded here – Muscle Shoals has become a landmark in American music history. The metro's leisure and hospitality sector have seen a small rise in jobs, but the rise in employment in professional and business services has fueled the decline in unemployment.
“We have seen a decrease in our rate over the last four months,” says Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations. “The Florence-Muscle Shoals' metro area wage and salary employment seemed to remain stable, while other metro areas have taken harder hits over the year.”
