|
|
| |
| Sun, Nov. 23, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
HP jobs mark 'transformation' of Arkansas economy, officials say Friday, Jun 20, 2008 By Jason Wiest Arkansas News Bureau CONWAY - The type of jobs Hewlett-Packard will bring to Arkansas, not the number of them nor their wages, make the company's plans historical, economic development officials said Thursday. One of the world's leading technology companies, HP announced plans to build a $28 million customer service and technical support center here, creating up to 1,200 new knowledge-based jobs with starting salaries paying better than $40,000 a year. "It represents the marriage of education and economic development that is the cornerstone of where we in America, and specifically we in Arkansas, need to be in this century," Gov. Mike Beebe said at a news conference on the University of Central Arkansas campus. The center, to be housed in a 150,000-square-foot structure on 12 acres in the Meadows Office and Technology Park, signifies "a whole new dimension of economic development" for the state, said Becky Thompson, deputy director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. "It's part of the transformation of the economy and it helps us to further diversify our economic base," Thompson said following the announcement. Economic development experts outside of Arkansas agreed. "I think it will be seen as a signal," said Jon Roberts, managing director of TIP Strategies Inc., an Austin-based business and economic development consulting firm. As the world's largest information technology company, many other companies in the sector closely track HP, known for having a different tradition and history than other companies that includes strong commitments to the places they locate, he said. "I don't know if it's transformative, but it's a coup for them (Arkansas) to get HP," said Roberts, who was hesitant to use a strong word like transformative but said that if any technology company could make that type of a wave in Arkansas, it is HP. Game-changing aside, HP's plans are at least significant because of their size and scope. Thompson and AEDC Director Maria Haley said it was not possible to accurately "rank" projects based on their size because they are "apples-to-oranges comparisons." But in the past decade, no other employer has created so many new jobs in Arkansas in one shot than HP says it will in Conway. The HP project in Conway is the largest creator of new jobs announced under Gov. Mike Beebe's administration. The jobs also will be some of the highest paying. Thursday's announcement by the 14th-ranked company on the Forbes 500 list trumped most economic development announcements in Arkansas in recent memory. Only Acxiom's announcement in 1998 that it would add 1,850 new jobs in the state over a 10-year period was larger in terms of jobs. AEDC officials could not immediately confirm whether Acxiom fulfilled the agreement to add that many new positions. HP's announcement comes less than a year after windmill blade manufacturer LM Glasfiber announced it would eventually employ 1,100 people at a $150 million plant in Little Rock, and potentially add even more jobs in the future. Nestle USA said it would create 963 jobs in 2001 when it announced a $165 million food processing plant in Jonesboro. Thursday's announcement is paramount in other ways. The average annual starting salary of the HP jobs will be just above $40,000 per year, officials said, well above Arkansas per capita personal income of $30,060, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. By comparison, starting wages at LM Glasfiber range from $11 to $15 per hour. The state will continue to recruit manufacturing jobs, Thompson and Haley said. However, landing HP will help Arkansas in its recruitment of other companies in the information technology sector, one of the state's targeted industries. "Companies will look at this announcement and they're going to wonder what it was that HP knew that they didn't know," Thompson said. Beebe and incoming House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, said the announcement was good for future economic development prospects as well as for the people of Arkansas. "Now, not only do we have this, we have credibility worldwide that Arkansas is a good place for knowledge-based jobs," Wills said. "It represents, I think, a vision and a hope for our people," the governor said. |
