Jobs Coming to Conway (Little Rock, Hope: sales, leasing, construction jobs)

[SwinerBock]

Sigh.... yeah, I'm afraid the central Arkansas workforce is going to take a hit on the Verizon/Alltel deal. How big is yet to be determined, but I'd imagine about half the Alltel workforce will be looking for jobs in about a year or two.

A few years back, I had an opportunity to go to work at Nuvell, but decided against it. A few months later they laid of a couple of thousand. I also had a potential opportunity with Alltel, but never really pursued it. And then you throw in Acxiom. What the heck is going on with them?

That said, I'm happy for Conway getting the HP jobs. The central Arkansas economy definitely needs it.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by strumpeace

Whoever these people are who were out there saying this kind of stuff anonymously need to be taken behind the woodshed. They really got folks' hope up a little too much. There was no way Conway, Arkansas, would be chosen for any kind of software development hq. We don't have the workforce necessary for something like that.

The 1200 jobs are welcome, of course, especially when it's becoming quite evident that Alltel will be losing employees. (Don't kid yourself into thinking Verizon won't lay off many--or most--of the Little Rock employees; the whole point of buying Alltel was to benefit from economies of scale.)

Are you sure they do not have the work force? You may be surprised. They could be recruiting from the outside as well. When the company I originally retired from moved to Carrollton Texas about 20 years ago, they brought with them some of their employees from NY. The cost of living was so attractive it wasn't hard to get them to re-locate plus they recruited from other large cities to get started. Then they consentrated on the locals for some of the lower classification jobs. It was a win/win for everyone.

Nita

[paramour]

Originally Posted by nmnita

Are you sure they do not have the work force? You may be surprised. They could be recruiting from the outside as well. When the company I originally retired from moved to Carrollton Texas about 20 years ago, they brought with them some of their employees from NY. The cost of living was so attractive it wasn't hard to get them to re-locate plus they recruited from other large cities to get started. Then they consentrated on the locals for some of the lower classification jobs. It was a win/win for everyone.

Nita

So we get the leftovers? I'm sure that would be a great relief to people looking for more if HP were to do the same.

[SwinerBock]

Originally Posted by nmnita

Are you sure they do not have the work force? You may be surprised. They could be recruiting from the outside as well. When the company I originally retired from moved to Carrollton Texas about 20 years ago, they brought with them some of their employees from NY. The cost of living was so attractive it wasn't hard to get them to re-locate plus they recruited from other large cities to get started. Then they consentrated on the locals for some of the lower classification jobs. It was a win/win for everyone.

Nita

Nmnita, out of curiousity, what was the company you worked for that moved to Carrollton?

[Aporkalypse]

These are tech support jobs with an average salary of $50,000. Those are not bad jobs.

Alltel will not be losing many jobs at all in the Verizon deal. I'm hearing very good things, wait and see.

[paramour]

News: HP enticed with $43 million to build Conway facility

[Bull Winkus]

$43 million is pretty much chump change to HP. Granted, it is a lot of money to Conway, but the pay back should be sweet. Assuming a more realistic avg salary of $40K, the direct payout into the local economy will be around $3 million a year. More importantly though is the indirect payout into the local economy as the new money passes hands. That can be as much as 5 times the direct infusion, giving roughly an $18 million a year boost. The actual numbers may be higher than that. I was trying to be conservative and base the direct infusion on just 6% of the wage.

[strumpeace]

Originally Posted by Bull Winkus

$43 million is pretty much chump change to HP. Granted, it is a lot of money to Conway, but the pay back should be sweet. Assuming a more realistic avg salary of $40K, the direct payout into the local economy will be around $3 million a year. More importantly though is the indirect payout into the local economy as the new money passes hands. That can be as much as 5 times the direct infusion, giving roughly an $18 million a year boost. The actual numbers may be higher than that. I was trying to be conservative and base the direct infusion on just 6% of the wage.

Unfortunately, neither the City nor the Chamber of Commerce has conducted a legitimate economic impact analysis to determine the potential economic effects. (Indirect multipliers for this kind of operation, btw, tend to be closer to 2 -- not 5.)

If HP closes up shop and moves away in a few years, the City and State will have lost money. (Nucor is a good example of that. It came to Conway with lots of hoopla and local and state dollars. It stayed a couple of years, then went to Memphis to leech off the taxpayers there.)

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by strumpeace

Unfortunately, neither the City nor the Chamber of Commerce has conducted a legitimate economic impact analysis to determine the potential economic effects. (Indirect multipliers for this kind of operation, btw, tend to be closer to 2 -- not 5.)

If HP closes up shop and moves away in a few years, the City and State will have lost money. (Nucor is a good example of that. It came to Conway with lots of hoopla and local and state dollars. It stayed a couple of years, then went to Memphis to leech off the taxpayers there.)

let's hope they will stay. There is no guarantees in life, companies do re-locate, but isn't it pretty negative to think this will happen? Would you rather see no new business in the area or none in all of Arkansas?

Nita

[Stormcrow73]

HP doesn't really strike me as the type of place to keep relocating for tax-payer handouts. Nucor on the other hand is in an industry that is going to continue struggling to maintain jobs on these shores so they probably do need to keep finding better handouts to stay afloat as opposed to offshoring their operations.