Economic Overview and Outlook for the Montgomery Metropolitan Area June 2014 | Seite 3

Economic Overview and Outlook
for the Montgomery Metropolitan Area

Montgomery Metro’s Economy
Gross Domestic Product

GDP of the U.S. and Alabama that grew by 2.5% and 1.2%,
respectively. An analysis of components that contributed to the
decline in Real GDP is presented in Table-7.

The real and current dollar GDP for all metropolitan areas
in Alabama have been detailed in Table-2 and Table-3. The
data for Montgomery Metro for the last six years are shown in
Figure-1 and Table-6.

TABLE 7: REAL GDP MONTGOMERY METRO ($ MILLION
2011
%
Real GDP ($ million)

100%

All industry Total

100%

2012

Value

%

$13,204

$(77)

100%

$13,204

$(77)

$10,220

$(33)

$607
$1,915
$1,030
$687

$10
$122
$34
$(163)

$1,360

$(61)

5.40%

$713

$(57)

$3,028 22.60%

$2,984

$(44)

$13,281

Construction
Manufacturing
Retail trade
Finance and insurance
Real estate, rental and
leasing
Professional, scientific
and technical services
Government

TABLE 6: GDP, MONTGOMERY METRO

77.20%
4.50%
13.50%
7.50%
6.40%

77.40%
$10,253
$598 4.60%
$1,793 14.50%
$996 7.80%
$850 5.20%

10.70%

$1,421 10.30%

5.80%

Value

100%

$13,281

Private industries

22.80%

Value

$770

During 2012, the Real GDP contribution of finance and
insurance declined by $163 million; real estate, rental and
leasing declined by $61 million; professional, scientific and
technical services declined by $57 million; and government
declined by $44 million. The growth of $163 million in
manufacturing, $34 million in retail trade and $10 million in
construction could not make up for the other declines, leading
to the Real GDP falling by $77 million.

2007
2008
2009
2010
2011 2012
Nominal GDP (million $)
14,296 14,689 14,558 14,868 15,252 15,425
Real GDP (million 2005 $) 13,419 13,500 12,959 13,137 13,281 13,204

The current dollar GDP of the United States grew by 4.09%
during 2012. The growth was 2.81% in Alabama, 5.48% in
Birmingham metro and 1.13% in Montgomery metro.
Figure-2 shows the relative contribution of the twelve metros to
the state of Alabama’s Real GDP. Birmingham metro by itself
accounts for 31.8% of the state’s GDP, followed by Huntsville
at 12.4% and Mobile at 9.2%. Montgomery metro follows with
8.4%. The non-metro region of Alabama contributed 16.7%
to the states’ GDP. Birmingham metro was ranked 50th and
Montgomery metro was ranked 135th in the nation in terms of
the size of GDP (Table-2).

Five other metropolitan areas in Alabama showed declines in
Real GDP that were more than that of Montgomery (Table-3).
The Real GDP figures suggest that 2012 was a relatively weak
year for Montgomery.

Employment and Labor Market
Table-8 shows the labor force, employment, unemployment
and the unemployment rate in Montgomery metro.
During 2013, the month of May had the highest employment;
however, the lowest unemployment rate was reported during
December 2013. This occurred because of a decline in the labor
force.
The unemployment rates for the months of February and
March 2014 are higher than the corresponding months in 2013.
The sharp reduction of the unemployment rate in January 2014
was due more to the decline in labor force than to an increase in
employment.

Despite being ranked 4th in the state, Montgomery’s Real
GDP fell by 0.6% during 2012. This was in contrast to the Real
3

Birmingham metro accounts for
31.8% of the state’s GDP, while
Montgomery metro accounts for
8.4% of the state’s GDP.