Looking for Work Still a Struggle

Jennifer Carroll comes to this office every day not to work, but to look for work. "Right now it's just hard. I've put in fast food and everything and nobody's hiring."

Potential employers take her application and resume and tell her they'll be hiring in a couple of months. "But that's the hard thing, a couple of months what are you suppose to do?"

According to Tara Hutchison with the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations, the job market is improving. "From January to December 2011 we saw more than 41 thousand more people receiving paychecks than they were at the beginning of the year. That's an impressive number."

"I don't see it not as yet," says Carroll.

Those numbers can be deceiving. "In my experience often times it is more people dropping out than adding people to the work force when you hear the numbers getting better." Rick Miller heads the Business Support Center and says while the economy is on the right track in the south part of the county we're not out of the woods yet. "There is still part of this economy that has given up hope."

No matter what the numbers say or the politicians say Jennifer Carroll is still looking for a job. One that she needs desperately or her life is going to take another drastic turn. "Our lot rent is up on the 30th and I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know where to go or what we're going to do. I've got four kids what do you do?"

The only thing she can do is keep looking and not give up hope.

Governor Bentley, who campaigned on creating more jobs for Alabamians, has announced a new economic development strategy called "Accelerate Alabama". He says he will focus on job creation in the coming months.