Alabama prison system needs more people so the state is raising salaries to $50,000 to attract people to the profession. From USNews:
The starting pay for a correctional officer trainee will rise from a minimum of $33,381 to a minimum of $50,712, with additional pay for those who work at high security facilities. The starting pay at a medium security facility will be $53,244 and $55,855 at a maximum security facility. Officers not at that level currently will also see their pay rise.
USNews.com
Last year in April 2022, there was an investment of $10 million in higher education to help ease the labor shortage but we wonder if that’s had any positive impact, perhaps that money would have been better spent increasing the wages of workers? From Business Alabama:
The Alabama Community College System Innovation Center is a $10 million investment supported by the Alabama Legislature that combines the forces of the state’s community colleges, business and industry, and community partners to deliver rapid, industry-recognized, non-credit training within some of Alabama’s most in-demand career fields — hospitality, butchery, commercial driver license (CDL), recreation, heavy equipment, plumbing and facilities maintenance.
Business Alabama
In any event we don’t think it will matter much what Alabama does because demographically speaking, Alabama is slowly dying according to Census stats. From 2021 to 2022 the state barely grew with 25,000 people and less than 30% of the population is under 18.
Alabama will need to change its demographic trajectory by attracting new people to the state because it can’t natively grow with the top heavy older population it currently has within its borders. We won’t be keeping an eye on Alabama for growth or investment prospects at the moment but we’ll check in a few years for any progress. Stay tuned, stay profitable and stay solvent…