Alabama — 3 to 5 Million CategoryIt was a good year for manufacturing in Silver Shovel recipient Alabama, with major investments in a diverse collection of projects, most of them brand-new. Additional jobs are driving in by way of logistics and distribution.

For example, more than a thousand automotive-related jobs were tied to two announcements. Autocar is investing $120 million to turn a million-square-foot complex in Center Point into a heavy-duty truck manufacturing plant, creating more than 700 jobs in the process. Hundreds more jobs are tied to the plans by Mercedes-Benz U.S. International to expand into the Bibb County part of the Birmingham area and build a Global Logistics Center and an after-sales hub. The $280 million projects represent just a quarter of Mercedes’ Alabama investment plans.

Hundreds of additional jobs are tied to the Huntsville aerospace sector, including projects from rocket engine builder Aerojet Rocketdyne and Blue Origin, the aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services firm that has ties to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. More manufacturing projects reflect growth in the food and poultry, aluminum, paper, and fiber cement industries, and Walmart has promised delivery of 550 distribution jobs.

Louisiana — 3 to 5 Million CategoryThe largest Louisiana job-creating project arrived just in time for the winter holidays, when DXC Technology announced plans to create up to 2,000 jobs across the street from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The Governor called the project “one of the most significant in the history of our state.”

Some of the other major initiatives were tied to the state’s prominent chemical and gas sectors, including a pair of billion-dollar deals involving a new plant from China’s Wanhua Chemical Group and a plan by Korean-owned Lotte Chemical USA to establish U.S. corporate offices alongside its new monoethylene glycol plant in Lake Charles. Among other wins that led to a Silver Shovel award, the state announced plans involving a fertilizer plant and an industrial gas operation, and deals involving prefabricated building manufacturing and paper milling.

Utah — 3 to 5 Million CategoryUtah last year celebrated the growth and commitment of a homegrown technology player. Pluralsight, an online education provider, will relocate and expand its headquarters south of Salt Lake City. The state further solidified its “Silicon Slopes” technology credentials with several other noteworthy projects, such as Adobe’s 1,200+-job expansion in Lehi, a Collective Medical Technologies expansion in Salt Lake City, and expansion plans by the fast-growing customer-interaction software provider Podium in Lehi.

The Silver Shovel-winning state’s financial services sector is growing nicely, too, with last year’s headlines including projects from high-tech California-based loan provider Earnest Inc. and mobile banking startup Varo Money Inc. More Salt Lake City jobs were announced in biotechnology, too, including at neurovascular tech provider Stryker and cardiovascular medical device maker Biomerics.

MethodologyArea Development’s annual Gold and Silver Shovel Awards recognize states for their achievements in attracting high-value investment projects that will create a significant number of new jobs in their communities. We collected information from all 50 states about their top-10 job-creation and investment projects initiated in 2017 (only those projects that actually had monies invested, “broke ground,” began an expansion, started new hiring, etc. were considered). Based on a combination of weighted factors — including the number of new jobs to be created in relation to the state’s population, the combined dollar amount of the investments, the number of new facilities, the diversity of industry represented — five states achieving the highest weighted overall scores were awarded Area Development’s 2018 Gold Shovels in five population categories: 12+ million, 8+ to 12 million, 5+ to 8 million, 3+ to 5 million, and fewer than 3 million. Runners-up in each of these population categories were awarded 2018 Silver Shovels.