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job growth

Charlotte job growth continues it’s growth trajectory

CHARLOTTE — Amazon nixed Charlotte’s $270 million economic incentives package, snubbing the Queen City in the process.  But with the announcement of four major economic development initiatives in the past four weeks that are set to add as many as 2,715 good paying jobs to the economy, the Queen City intends to cultivate a strong workforce to attract and retain companies and skilled individuals.

Companies expand in locations where they can either find talent or attract talent to join the region, said Tracy Dodson, assistant city manager for the City of Charlotte.

“If you build a great city, and you build a great region, you attract the talent and you retain the talent,” said Dodson.  “When there’s a city within a region where people want to live, companies can thrive, and their employees can thrive.”

And Charlotte appears to be attracting and retaining talent, with the region growing at nearly 14 percent since 2010, ranking among the top 35 fastest-growing cities by population in 2017 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s more than 300,000 people that have relocated to Charlotte in seven years, and the Queen City nets roughly 60 new residents per day.  And that’s good for Charlotte, said Dodson, and good for companies that are expanding or looking to relocate to the region.

“People want to be here,” said Dodson.  “We’re trying to leverage that with companies.”

Full article HERE

Source: WRAL Tech Wire

Surprise: This Southern Hub Might Have the Best Talent Pipeline in Tech

North Carolina is home to a bustling epicenter for tech startups, brainy talent, and killer barbecue.

A hyper-educated workforce means the Research Triangle, the North Carolina region comprising Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh--Inc.'s No. 3 Surge City--has a booming and brainy startup scene. Once known for tobacco and textiles, the area has reinvented itself as a hub equally well-versed in tech and food.

Startup Neighborhoods

Most residents never thought they'd see the day, but downtown Durham is now a cultural and entrepreneurial hotbed. American Tobacco Campus, once a crime-ridden stretch of abandoned cigarette factories, is now a sprawling expanse of outdoor cafés, green space, and startup offices. Sports-scheduling app maker Teamworks is around the corner from the massive American Underground co-working space, which houses more than 80 companies, including fintech startup LoanWell.

Raleigh's Warehouse District, another recently revitalized precinct, is home to Videri Chocolate Factory, as well as HQ Raleigh's 20,000-square-foot flagship co-working space. Lunchgoers hit the original Happy + Hale for ahi poke bowls and cold-pressed juices.

$96,173

Average salary of a software engineer here --17 percent below the national average.

Source: Glassdoor

$1.1 billion

Funding raised by North Carolina startups in 2017, up 36 percent from the previous year.

Source: Council for Entrepreneurial Development

$25.23

The average annual asking office rent per square foot.

Source: JLL's Q2 2018 Office Insight report on the Raleigh-Durham market

47 percent

Portion of the local talent pool with a bachelor's or higher degree.

Source: JLL's Q2 2018 Office Insight report on the Raleigh-Durham market

The Downtown Chapel Hill area, located at the northwest corner of the UNC campus, is home to a Google outpost and a handful of co-working spaces.

Talent Pipeline

The home to Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and NC State offers a hyper-educated workforce (ahead of San Francisco, according to NerdWallet). All three schools have well-regarded entrepreneurship programs, as well as angel funds through which alumni can invest in current students' ventures. The area's startups are software-heavy, thanks in part to the schools' strong engineering and computer science studies, but there are plenty of exceptions, like beekeeping startup Bee Downtown, which Leigh- Kathryn Bonner founded while at NC State.

UNC-backed Launch Chapel Hill offers a 22-week accelerator program that accepts eight to 12 startups. Graduates include Seal the Seasons, which freezes and distributes farmers' crops.

Full Article HERE

Source: Inc.com

Triangle places No. 5 in top 25 'Tech Cities' report

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — The Research Triangle metro region places No. 5 in a new study of "Tech Cities" from international corporate real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, which specializes on the high-tech sector.

The firm, which has an office in the Triangle, ranks the cities based on what it calls a "tech stew" of factors, including:

  • Work force talent
  • Capital
  • Growth opportunities

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill are often broken up in other reports due to federal government Metropolitan Statistical Area statistics, which split Raleigh from the other two.

However, the Cushman & Wakefield analysis groups the three along with Cary and other towns and communities, thus creating a grid of data that captures the region as a whole.

And a powerful region it is, given that the only cities/regions to beat the Triangle include:

1. Silicon Valley

2. San Francisco

3. Washington, D.C.

4. Boston metro

Thus, the Triangle outranks rivals such as Austin, Texas (No. 7), Atlanta (No. 17) and Nashville. (No. 25).

So why did the Triangle rate so highly?

“Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, often referred to as the ‘Triangle’ by locals because of the shape these three proximate cities form on a map, has developed into a major market for technology companies given the area’s deep pool of skilled labor, the presence of three prominent universities, and its reputation as a medical and technology research hub,” said Rich Harris, Managing Principal for Cushman & Wakefield, who focuses on the Triangle.

The report is the first from the firm and is titled "Tech Cities 1.0"

Cushman & Wakefield created the “Tech Cities 1.0” report to provide greater insight for its clients and industry stakeholders into existing and emerging tech centers that are driving much of today’s U.S. economy.

Harris also pointed out the Triangle's booming startup community with hundreds of new and emerging ventures alone packing The American Underground and HQ Raleigh startup hubs. Various other startup and co-location hubs also boast a growing clientele.

Triangle perspective

Here's what Harris had to say about the Triangle:

“It’s not uncommon to see a doctor leave a career at a hospital to start a company based on decades of research, or a technology executive at one of the major R&D companies in the Park leaving a position to pursue a specialized line of technology that’s too specific for a larger company to pursue; and they often separate amicably and with the backing of their previous employers. Once they start their companies, the feeder of local graduates – coupled with the talent migrating to the Triangle – serve as a potent workforce.”

“One of the more interesting transformations has been the impact of the ‘live-work-play’ phenomenon, which has rapidly built up our city centers across the Triangle, particularly in downtown Durham where there was an abundance of historic tobacco warehouses that were converted to sleek tech workspaces with hardwood floors, big bay windows, large timbers, and high ceilings.

“Most of these buildouts were aided by historic tax credits, which enabled companies to create one-of-a-kind destination spaces for tech companies. In both Raleigh and Durham, we have seen a proliferation of co-working and entrepreneurial support organizations such as the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, American Underground, Raleigh HQ, and others.”

“Other factors contributing to tech growth are more basic,” Mr. Harris elaborated, “such as the Triangle’s quality of life, which boasts direct access to the beach to the east and the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. The Triangle is also very competitive from a cost-of-living standpoint, especially when compared to first-tier city tech hotbeds that are often triple the price to do business.”

Cushman & Wakefield employs some 45,000 people across more than 70 countries.

The rest of the top 25

From No. 6 through No. 25:

No. 6: Seattle

No. 7: Austin

No. 8: Denver

No. 9: San Diego

No. 10: Madison, Wis.

No. 11: Minneapolis/St. Paul

No. 12: Baltimore

No. 13: Oakland

No. 14: Portalnd

No. 15: New York

No. 16: Chicago

No. 17: Atlanta

No. 18: Los Angeles

No. 19: Columbus, Ohio

No. 20: Orange County, Calif.

No. 21: Dallas/Ft. Worth

No. 22: Kansas City

No. 23: Indianapolis

No. 24: Salt Lake City

No. 25: Nashville

Full Article HERE


Source: WRAL Techwire