big economic news for Kingsport... (Johnson City: 2010, construction jobs, new)

[kamoshika]

Eastman Chemical announced today that it will invest more than $1.3 billion over five years in its Kingsport headquarters operation. It's reportedly the largest single private investment in Tennessee history.

Eastman Chemical is a Fortune 500 company (No. 321 last year) with 7500 employees in Kingsport and '06 revenues of $7.45 billion.

This news comes on the heels of last year's announcement that Eastman intends to hire 2000 new employees through 2010, many of them to replace retiring workers.

75-80% of the positions will be technical jobs requiring an associate's degree, while the other 20-25% will be business and professional positions in areas like engineering, business and law that require four-year degrees or more.

The current pay is about $18 an hour for the technical jobs and much more for the others, depending on the position.

[jjbradleynyc]

Whoa! That's major news for Kingsport. I was always waiting for the announcement that Eastman may "severely cut back" or "shut down entirely." Lo and behold, this isn't happening any time soon, clearly.

I'm really surprised. Good for Kingsport's economy and people--that's for sure. Hopefully Eastman is doing something about its pollution--the Holston River was a chemical soup when I grew up there in the 70s and 80s (I left in 1990). Also, the air pollution is hopefully getting less and less.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by kamoshika

Eastman Chemical announced today that it will invest more than $1.3 billion over five years in its Kingsport headquarters operation. It's reportedly the largest single private investment in Tennessee history.

Eastman Chemical is a Fortune 500 company (No. 321 last year) with 7500 employees in Kingsport and '06 revenues of $7.45 billion.

This news comes on the heels of last year's announcement that Eastman intends to hire 2000 news employees through 2010, many of them to replace retiring workers.

75-80% will be technical jobs requiring an associate's degree, while the other 20-25% are business and professional positions in things like engineering, business and law that require four-year degrees or more.

The current pay is about $18 an hour for the technical jobs and much more for the others, depending on the position.

You beat me to it! I was going to post the same thing.

And even though this $1.3 billion doesn't necessarily mean any NEW jobs at Eastman, it'll clearly mean a bunch of new construction jobs for the Kingsport area. I think it's great news, and it's about time that Kingsport has something to feel proud about. (I've always secretly liked Kingsport more than Johnson City, but don't tell anyone... heh heh)