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acc.com

Economy


How local and regional governments are creating jobs

  • Written by lisaacs
  • 23rd July 2012
Job making is an art that takes skill, hard work and talent

What is in this article?

  • How local and regional governments are creating jobs
  • Fostering entrepreneurship
  • Working with private interests

How local and regional governments are creating jobs

This article appeared in the July 2012 issue with the headline, "The art of job making."

While traditional economic measures show that the Great Recession has been over for quite some time, perpetual joblessness in many parts of the economy says otherwise. But even as high unemployment numbers still plague much of the country, some areas have been successfully creating new jobs and retaining old ones using non-traditional as well as old-school economic development methods.

For instance, last year, Fort Bend County, Texas, added 845 new jobs through corporate relocations or startups, while retaining 822 jobs that were subject to possible relocation to other areas, says Bob Hebert, county judge. “These 1,667 added or retained jobs and the related increase of $278.2 million in invested capital are the highest numbers achieved in any 12-month period since we initiated our economic development strategy in 1986,” he says.

The economic development strategies that are working now are not necessarily the same methods that worked five or 10 years ago. Instead, successful cities and counties are making strides by pursuing more projects, forging new partnerships and focusing on previously overlooked segments such as entrepreneurs and immigrants.

Adding irons to the fire

While Fort Bend County, located near Houston, has experienced some success, national economic realities have forced county executives to place their eggs in many baskets. “We have won several competitions for major corporate moves to the county over the past several months only to have the projects canceled as those companies redefined their own strategies in the face of the continuing economic recession,” Hebert says. “With so many prospects canceling their projects, it was felt we needed to increase the number of prospects if we were to have a reasonable number of projects completed.”

The county council launched an aggressive five-year national marketing campaign to promote Fort Bend County to the nation’s business community. “This multi-million dollar project is structured to increase the interest in the county as a site for relocation or expansion,” Hebert says.

The Fort Bend marketing program, which targets a well-defined core audience, includes advertising elements encouraging businesses to headquarter or expand in Fort Bend County, while also branding the county as a high quality, premier destination for families. “The key to the process is to create a positive perception of Fort Bend County in the minds of our core audience based on facts and figures, rather than opinions or beliefs,” Hebert says.

Primarily targeted at California, New York, New Jersey and Houston markets, the campaign uses elements such as social media, direct mail, radio, television, public relations and e-blasts. Organizers measure the campaign’s success by website visits, lead generation, e-blast inquiries, impressions from media, social media measurements, ad equivalency value, and direct corporate relocations.

Almost three years into the five-year campaign, results so far include almost 3 million gross impressions for TV commercials in Houston area; 29 million gross impressions for radio commercials in Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Trenton, New Jersey; and 1,058 website visitors per month. And “while the identity of prospects is held in confidence, we have seen a significant increase in legitimate prospects in 2011 and 2012,” Hebert says. “We are landing relocations and expansions at our pre-recession rates.”

In Charlotte, N.C., economic development professionals are similarly focused on broadening their potential prospects. In fact, Ronnie Bryant, president and CEO of Charlotte Regional Partnership, does not measure success by the number of jobs created but by “the number of opportunities I give my community to compete for,” he says. “My No. 1 metric is, how many different companies are we working with at one time at some stage of development?”

For the Charlotte region, Bryant’s goal is to keep a rolling average of about 70 deals in the works at all times. “If I can get Charlotte into enough deals, we can win our share,” Bryant says. “We have a competitive product, but you have to get a seat at the table first.”

During the past few years, the Charlotte Regional Partnership has worked to increase the number of projects in negotiations by becoming more aggressive in its marketing activities, Bryant says. That translates into more visits with company executives who may be interested in expanding a national public relations campaign, and the establishment of Memorandums of Understanding with investment promotion agencies in other countries to support cooperation in investment promotion, marketing and referral.

1 | 2 | 3 |
Fostering entrepreneurship
Tags: Economy Article

6 comments

  1. Avatar Anonymous 25th July 2012 @ 5:29 pm
    Reply

    I don’t mean to be a wet
    I don’t mean to be a wet blanket, but attracting relocation is basically stealing the jobs from another area. What about those job losses? In order to do the attracting, tax abatements are typically given. It all pretty much nets to zero. How does that help anything?

  2. Avatar Anonymous 25th July 2012 @ 8:34 pm
    Reply

    Unless these businesses come
    Unless these businesses come from a foreign country, all these programs do is rob Peter to pay Paul. A business that relocates from another community is just a wash to the nation.

  3. Avatar Augie 3rd August 2012 @ 8:24 pm
    Reply

    Actually it’s worse than a
    Actually it’s worse than a net zero since there is a net loss of tax revenues. It’s the classic “race to the bottom” which hurts everyone. But from a municipality’s standpoint, it’s perfectly rational behavior.

    • Avatar Anonymous 3rd August 2012 @ 11:45 pm
      Reply

      I like how it’s OK for a city
      I like how it’s OK for a city to act in it’s own interest, but not for a business.

      But wait, this is in a businesses interest. What are we doing? Aren’t we supposed to be punishing businesses?!? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

  4. Avatar kevinpatrick 4th December 2013 @ 11:32 am
    Reply

    Thousands of people lost
    Thousands of people lost their job during the recession period. But I think government had done a great job to overcome the crisis. Now new job vacancies have been created. This was an excellent article. It has some valuable content on this topic. Please keep updating.

  5. Avatar Kevinmn 11th June 2014 @ 9:51 am
    Reply

    Thanks for nice share! in my
    Thanks for nice share! in my point of view, If the media tell us that “the opening of XYZ mill has created 1,000 new Jobs,” we give a cheer. When the ABC company closes and 500 jobs are lost, we’re sad. The politician who can provide a subsidy to save ABC is almost assured of wide-spread public-support for his work in preserving jobs.

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