The Sun Belt Is Adding Jobs. Many Displaced Workers Are Returning for Less
The Sun Belt's job market expands as displaced workers find new roles, but many earn less than before. Older workers and manufacturing employees face the toughest recoveries, revealing challenges beneath headline job gains.
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The Sun Belt’s employment story is usually told through new factories, corporate expansions and fast-growing metropolitan areas. New federal data reveal the other side of that economy: More experienced workers are losing established jobs, and finding another position often does not restore their former income.
From 2023 through 2025, 3.3 million Americans were displaced from jobs they had held for at least three years, an increase of 746,000 from the previous three-year period. The South Atlantic and West South Central divisions—covering much of the Sun Belt from the Carolinas and Georgia through Florida and Texas—were the only regions where the increase was statistically significant, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
The South Atlantic recorded approximately 718,000 long-tenured displaced workers, nearly twice the previous survey’s 364,000. The West South Central region, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma, rose from 238,000 to 397,000.
These figures do not count every person who quit or was dismissed. The federal definition covers workers age 20 or older who lost a job because a company or plant closed or moved, work became insufficient, or a position or shift was eliminated.
A new job does not always repair the loss
Nationally, about two-thirds of long-tenured displaced workers were working again by January 2026, roughly unchanged from two years earlier. The more troubling change appeared in their paychecks.
Among those who had lost full-time positions, returned to full-time wage or salary work and provided comparable earnings information, only 49% were making at least as much as before. Two years earlier, 62% had recovered or exceeded their previous earnings.
More than one-quarter were earning at least 20% less. A worker who previously made $75,000 would fall below $60,000 at that level—a reduction large enough to reshape housing, child-care, education and retirement decisions even though the person is officially employed again.
That distinction matters in fast-growing Southern states. A region can continue announcing thousands of new positions while experienced workers quietly move into jobs with lower pay, fewer benefits or less security. Employment totals alone do not reveal whether those workers have recovered their former standard of living.
Manufacturing carried the largest losses
Manufacturing accounted for 642,000 long-tenured displaced workers, up by 215,000 from the previous survey period. Most of those losses occurred in durable-goods industries. Professional and business services represented 16% of long-term displacement, while retail accounted for 10%.
Manufacturing workers also faced particularly difficult pay outcomes. Among those who returned to full-time work and reported comparable earnings, more than half were earning less than they had in their former jobs. Nearly one-third were making at least 20% less.
Not every part of the Sun Belt produced the same result. Approximately 73% of displaced workers in the West South Central region were reemployed, the highest rate among the country’s geographic divisions. Yet in the South Atlantic, about 21% had left the labor force entirely by January.
Age made recovery more difficult. The reemployment rate reached nearly 73% among workers ages 25 to 54 but fell to 57% for those ages 55 to 64 and below 39% for workers 65 and older. For an experienced employee in the final decade of a career, displacement can become an early and unwanted exit from the workforce rather than a temporary interruption.
The Sun Belt continues to create jobs, but job creation and economic mobility are not the same thing. The more revealing test is whether people who lose established positions can find work that preserves the income, stability and career progress they spent years building.
For a growing number of displaced workers, being employed again is not the same as being financially restored.
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