By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Jefferson County announced preliminary estimates that show more than $400 million in economic development projects during 2025 including nearly 900 jobs and an average hourly wage of $30.60, according to figures provided by Jeff Traywick, economic development advisor for the Jefferson County Commission.
The projects, worth $401,492,499 and 886 jobs, were in a variety of industry sectors that included manufacturing, automotive, logistics, IT and health care and led by the Alabama Farm Center’s (tourism) $150 million investment in Warrior; CMC Steel’s (manufacturing) $135 million expansion in Birmingham and ITU AbsorbTech’s new planned facility in McCalla ($24.5 million).
Traywick said 2025 has been “an incredible year” for Jefferson County in terms of economic development activity. “Every single economic sector has seen significant activity and wages have been seeing significant increases on average,” he said. “As we wrap up the year with the announcement of Jefferson County’s partnership with KultureCity in their planned $60 million development in downtown, we are moving forward with several significant projects.”
Those projects which could be announced in early 2026 “will add hundreds of millions in investment into the county along with the creation of hundreds of new job opportunities for our citizens,” Traywick said. “Additionally, we are looking at ways to better address the needs of small business and to address barriers to workforce that are keeping thousands sidelined at a time in which we are seeing significant job and wage growth and demand for quality workers.”
The county’s advisor said Amsterdam-based Nebius Group purchased property in Birmingham late last year for $90 million “and it is likely that this project could see an estimated investment of more than several billion over the first three years if the project moves forward,” according to estimates.
Nebius is a NVIDIA Cloud Partner and in September of this year entered into an infrastructure agreement with Microsoft worth at least $17.4 billion. Using estimates on the capital spend, Traywick said “this could potentially have an annual impact of more than $25 million for Birmingham City Schools and more than $10 million for Jefferson County Schools.”
The average worker in Jefferson County earned annual wages of $71,647 as of the second quarter of 2025, and average annual wages per worker increased 5.4 percent in the region over the preceding four quarters. For comparison purposes, annual average wages were $75,686 in the nation as of Q2 2025, Traywick said. One of the higher-growth sectors, in terms of wage growth, has come from manufacturing which has seen annual average wages grow by more than $20,000 since 2020.
