The Times is counting down its top stories of 2022. Here’s No. 3:

This year Alabama experiences record low unemployment — dropping as low as 2.6% in September — and Cullman County maintained its position as having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. But, as unemployment rates dropped, nearly every industry faced an unprecedented shortage of available workers.

“I don’t think there’s any particular industry or job classification [that has been affected]. If you drive around town you’ll see help wanted ads at restaurants, at retail stores, at gas stations and convenience stores, manufacturers, and at the distribution centers. I think it is businesses across the board,” Cullman Economic Development Agency Director Dale Greer told The Times in November.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville addressed the labor shortage when speaking at a Forum Alabama breakfast, presented by the Mobile Chamber of Commerce, in October.

“What’s happening in our country right now, we’re getting too many takers in our country,” Tuberville said at the event. He later added, “They don’t want to go to work. We’ve got to get Generation X [a spokesperson for Tuberville later clarified that he misspoke and had intended to reference the much younger Generation Z] and these Millennials to understand that you have to tote your load,” Tuberville said.

Those with a background in economics said that the issue was a much more complicated one that stemmed from a variety of sources.

“His statement is a repeat of certain beliefs within the system, because some people think that there are lots of people not working and are sitting on their hands. There’s really not,” said Senior Research Economist and Associate Dean for Economic Development with the University of Alabama Sam Addy. “Those of us who look at the economy, we know that [millennials] are not lazy. We just know that it is an easy excuse for the decision makers.”

Director of Communications for the Alabama Department of Labor Tara Hutchinson said that everything from the cost of child and elder care, to workers simply pursuing higher paying opportunities, has led to businesses facing difficulties maintaining their labor supply.

Another leading cause according to Hutchinson was that lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic combined with Alabama’s aging workforce was resulting in a shorter supply of workers.

“We do have in Alabama — and this has been true for decades — we do have a higher boomer population than a lot of other states. The pandemic triggered a lot of retirements. Unfortunately, there were also some deaths. So when you have this overnight event that puts a lot of people out of the workforce, that is definitely going to contribute to what we’re seeing now.”

Many businesses attempted to tap into underutilized sections of the available labor pool by utilizing the Work Opportunity Tax Credit through the ADL or partnering with local schools that provided apprenticeship programs or organizations such as Flourish of Cullman and United Ability in Birmingham to connect employers with potential workers living with disabilities.

Due to an abundance of available jobs however, the shortage continues.

“At some point you just have too many jobs. There are more jobs than there are people to fill them,” Hutchinson said..