Economic Development in South Carolina

[CorgiMatt]

A group of universities and corporations have announced plans to form a consortium for training mainframe computer specialists for all types of businesses in a first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation program at Innovista.

http://www.thestate.com/breaking/story/625536.html

Edited December 18, 2008 by CorgiMatt

[CorgiMatt]

Not hard to hear on this one. Bosch is offering voluntary severance to see who will take it at the Charleston and Anderson factories. If enough take it, no layoffs will be needed. Thank God Bosch isn't just closing up and leaving the state as in the case of Continental in Blythewood, where 440 will simply be out of work.

In other news, Greenville continues to buck the national recession:

Article from Greenville News talks about how the bad national economy makes Greenville's low cost of living, job gains and housing stability look even better.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20.../812180316/1003

I reread the article and it certainly does not sound good for the auto manufacturing portion of the state's economy. The tone of the article from beginning to end is not good. But whatever.

[krazeeboi]

In related news, Gov. Mark Sanford is threatening to not apply for a federal loan needed to make unemployment payments to 77,000 out-of-work South Carolinians unless the state

[GvilleSC]

Sanford does have some legit battles that he fights. However, I'm not sure that now, a time when the state's unemployment is rising, is the time for this fight. I'm also not convinced that it cannot be fought while still giving the agency the necessary money to support South Carolinians...

Edited December 19, 2008 by GvilleSC

[Spartan]

I tend to agree. I'm usually with Sanford on his budgetary arguments, but with our unemployment projected to go as high as 14% next year, I think we could stand to have that money around.

[krazeeboi]

I agree also. Now is certainly not the time for political posturing.

[krazeeboi]

In a move that's sure to have ripple effects throughout the state, the Port of Charleston's largest customer , Maersk, announced that by December 31, 2010, it will cease all operations at the port. Maersk accounts for 20% of Charleston's container business in a time when container volume is down 4% for the fiscal year.

[GvilleSC]

^^ That's certainly not good. At least there's two years to hopefully find some replacement business for the port??

[Spartan]

Ouch

[krazeeboi]

^^ That's certainly not good. At least there's two years to hopefully find some replacement business for the port??

It's going to be really hard to try and find customers to make up for the volume that Maersk is providing. I swear, the Port of Charleston seems like it can't win for losing lately.

[Spartan]

That will hopefully drive home the point that the SCPA needs to modernize our state's ports. It can't be all about efficiency.

[krazeeboi]

SC's unemployment rate for the month of November was 8.4%, the third highest in the country. It's even expected to get higher than that. The state lost 11,900 jobs during November and has 42,800 fewer jobs than a year ago. Nationally, the November unemployment rate was 6.7%, with Michigan and Rhode Island recording the worst rates. South Carolina was tied with California.

For SC's metro areas, here's how unemployment rates looked for November:

Anderson: 8.1%

Charleston: 6.8%

Columbia: 7.0%

Florence: 8.8%

Greenville: 7.2%

Myrtle Beach: 9.5%

Spartanburg: 8.4%

Sumter: 9.9%

York County's (part of the Charlotte MSA) was 8.2% and Aiken County's (part of the Augusta MSA) was 7.1%.

I know we like to hear (and post) job creation announcements, but those jobs are going to take months to years to materialize. They don't impact these figures right now. The good thing about them is that they will hopefully help to lift the state out of this recession sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, there's still a storm to weather.

[CorgiMatt]

Bummer. Even the big three's numbers are ugly compared to what they used to be. And Anderson and Spartanburg's, too. We'll have to all weather the storm together.

[gman430]

According to GSA Business, nearly $2.18 billion in capital investments were announced for upstate this year. That equals 40% of the statewide total in 2008 and would have been third in the nation if this were 2007 according to Hal Johnson, president and chief executive of the Upstate Alliance. Mr. Johnson also states that this will equate to more then 5,800 new jobs in the upstate once all of the investments are complete. Of the total investment, $1.26 billion comes from businesses already located in the area, and 20 of the 69 projects announced are foreign investments. Here is a list showing the what companies announced expansions and how many jobs they will produce in each upstate county: http://www.gsabusiness.com/index.php?optio...=view&id=90

[CorgiMatt]

Let's hope they pan out despite the worsening economy. With the number of people in the Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson areas who are out of work as reflected in the state's just released unemployment figures, those jobs will be needed.

[Captain Worley]

That will hopefully drive home the point that the SCPA needs to modernize our state's ports. It can't be all about efficiency.

I think the union was more of the reason Maersk is leaving, but they do need to upgrade facilities.

[Spartan]

and would have been third in the nation if this were 2007

That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've seen today. Why didn't he say where we are ranked in 2008?

Thanks for posting this though. Its good to see this kind of info given the general state of the economy.

[monsoon]

The New York times has an article on the state of the economy in Columbia. I am going to say that it is probably worse than this for most of the average population in much of the rest of the state. It's amazing the stand the Governor is taking on this. Then again, the upper crust of SC has always taken a stand to keep everyone poor.

[goodbye]

According to GSA Business, nearly $2.18 billion in capital investments were announced for upstate this year. That equals 40% of the statewide total in 2008 and would have been third in the nation if this were 2007 according to Hal Johnson, president and chief executive of the Upstate Alliance. Mr. Johnson also states that this will equate to more then 5,800 new jobs in the upstate once all of the investments are complete. Of the total investment, $1.26 billion comes from businesses already located in the area, and 20 of the 69 projects announced are foreign investments. Here is a list showing the what companies announced expansions and how many jobs they will produce in each upstate county: http://www.gsabusiness.com/index.php?optio...=view&id=90

This doesn't even take into account the major job announcements for Greenville Hospital System (approximately 800 new jobs in fiscal year 2009) and Bon Secours St. Francis (500 jobs at the new hospital campus under construction), both located in Greenville County. Then you've also got Village Hospital which just opened in Greer. Those hospital announcements were equivalent to major economic development announcements, considering the number of new jobs they are bringing in such a short amount of time.

[Spartan]

The New York times has an article on the state of the economy in Columbia. I am going to say that it is probably worse than this for most of the average population in much of the rest of the state. It's amazing the stand the Governor is taking on this. Then again, the upper crust of SC has always taken a stand to keep everyone poor.

Thanks for posting this link.

It was an interesting article, but I take issues with it on a few things. The article did a good job of painting the worst picture possible for Columbia. They talk about the crappiest parts of town and the woes of people at a job fair. They also talk about North Main Street as though it is Main Street- and if someone unfamiliar with Columbia reads it, they might get the impression that Main Street doesn't have sidewalks. Really, it just irks me that the article is about unemployment, but they chose to focus on describing one bad part of town.

To that end, I am confident that our governor will not get his way regarding the infrastructure bill. I do respect his opinion because as fiscally conservative as he is, he should know a thing or two about how to manage money. But the momentum is not going his way, and I want SC to get its share of the money. I think SCDOT will get a large chunk of that money since most of SC's roads are state maintained.

This doesn't even take into account the major job announcements for Greenville Hospital System (approximately 800 new jobs in fiscal year 2009) and Bon Secours St. Francis (500 jobs at the new hospital campus under construction), both located in Greenville County. Then you've also got Village Hospital which just opened in Greer. Those hospital announcements were equivalent to major economic development announcements, considering the number of new jobs they are bringing in such a short amount of time.

I thought that it seemed a little heavy on the manufacturing/industrial jobs. Its weird that they chose not to include those when they announced other expansions.

[CorgiMatt]

Despite the fact that the Columbia MSA's unemployment rate isn't as bad as the rest of the state's largest MSA's (Charleston excepted), Columbia can't win for losing when it comes to the angle from which the national media invariably choose to cover us. At least the writer mentioned the newly streetscaped part of Main Street, the new Sheraton, and the Vista in a relatively good light.

[goodbye]

Despite the fact that the Columbia MSA's unemployment rate isn't as bad as the rest of the state's largest MSA's (Charleston excepted)...

Columbia's MSA is not doing very well though, regardless of intrastate comparisons. The same can be said for every MSA in the state, including Charleston. This is the nature of our economic condition as it is affected by problems on a much larger scale, nationally and globally. I don't expect the outlook to suddenly change for the better as a result of these new job announcements. Until we see financial stability return on a national level, it will be difficult to expect our local economies to prosper at the level they had in recent years.

[CorgiMatt]

I didn't mean it is doing well. It's sucky - period. My point was that as far as the unemployment rate is concerned, it's not doing as badly as some of the state's other MSA's, yet it seems those MSA's get better national press.

[krazeeboi]

The Big Three are pretty much in the same boat as far as unemployment is concerned. It's the Sumters and Myrtle Beaches that are truly suffering.

The NYT article was pretty interesting. The point wasn't to make it look as though Columbia is doing worse than any other city/metro area, but that Columbia is representative of what's going on throughout the country as a whole. I think the N. Main streetscaping project was brought up because it's a project designed to uplift a somewhat depressed part of town in hard economic times, making it a bit unlikely that we'll see any immediate benefits to the streetscaping. At least the article did attempt to point out the positives, unlike a recent article in Business Week about Greensboro that also centered around a recently unemployed person now attending job fairs looking for a new job.

[gman430]

That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've seen today. Why didn't he say where we are ranked in 2008?

Thanks for posting this though. Its good to see this kind of info given the general state of the economy.

Because it's not the end of 2008 yet. You can't say where your city was ranked this year until the year comes to a close and all of the job announcements/capital investments have been tallied. If this was 2007, the only cities that would have done better in terms of capital investments were Pittsburgh with $2.8 billion and Cincinnati with $2.7 billion.