ORANGE BEACH – To illustrate just how intertwined the economies of Mobile and Baldwin counties are, one just has to look at Census numbers on citizens in the workforce.

Of the more than 73,000 people with jobs who live in Baldwin County, nearly 34,000 of those work outside of the county. Of the nearly 61,000 people who are employed in Baldwin County, nearly 22,000 live in other counties.

Of the total number of people employed in Baldwin County – about 61,000 – almost 10,000 come from their homes in Mobile County.

“We’ve got a healthy percentage of people waking up in Mobile every day and coming this way,” Lee Lawson, president of the Baldwin County Economic Alliance, said. “We have zip code data on all of our top industrial employers and it’ll surprise you the numbers of people who do come from Mobile and others to work the advance manufacturing sector.”

Troy Wayman of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce says though a majority of those employed in Mobile County also live there, there are several thousand workers who come from other counties.

“Statistically, 72 percent of the people that work in Mobile live in Mobile, in the county,” Wayman, Vice President for Economic Development, said. “Only about 12 percent or so of our work force comes out of Baldwin County.

“That 12 percent represents nearly 20,000 people because the work force is significantly larger than Baldwin County’s work force right now.”

More than a quarter of the people with jobs who live in Baldwin County go to Mobile County for work.

With closely tied economies, both officials say, a measure of teamwork is used when the counties look to recruit new businesses to locate in south Alabama.

“From an economic development basis we really do look at it as a regional effort,” Wayman said. “Lee Lawson, my counterpart over in Baldwin County, he and I have known each other for a very long time even before we both were in these jobs. We’ve got a good relationship and we work on a lot of joint recruiting efforts.”

Businesses looking to move to area see the coastal region of Alabama as one big area, Wayman said.

“When we’re dealing with companies, especially the amount of international companies we have in our area, it is a challenge enough to get them to understand where Alabama is much less where Baldwin County or Mobile County is,” he said. “To them there is no county line between the two of us. They see state lines. County lines don’t seem to matter to them as much as us so we market as a region because we have similar resources.”

Sometimes that means he and Lawson have joint meetings with prospective business recruits.

“Many times we give joint presentations to prospects because when we present work force data our numbers are the same,” Wayman said. “There’s no sense making them sit through the presentation twice.”

And while they compete for some of the same projects, there is cooperation from both sides of the bay if the end result will mean another new business for the area.

“My first area of responsibility obviously is Mobile, but if it’s a project we’re not going to get here I would much rather it go to Baldwin County than to go into Mississippi or Florida,” Wayman said. “We share information a lot.”

A lot of times, Lawson said, companies with headquarters in Mobile may expand to the east where they have employees living in Baldwin County.

“If you look at all your big employers in Mobile like Hargrove and Southern Light and CTSI, those folks will tell you a fairly healthy percentage of their white-collar work force is living on the Eastern Shore and in Baldwin County,” Lawson said. “You’re seeing several companies look to the Eastern Shore for either satellite offices or either a division of their company.”

Workers who reside in Baldwin County head off to a variety of other locales for jobs even if the majority, nearly 20,000, head to Mobile County. Other places with workers from Baldwin include Escambia County, Fla. (3,017), Jefferson County (1,776), Montgomery County (1,065), Escambia County, Ala. (834), Jackson County, Miss. (768), Shelby County (438), Tuscaloosa County (418) and Santa Rosa County, Fla.(383).