http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124485634480511841.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The Southeast has attracted an array of corporate facilities recently. In February, Asbury Automotive Group Inc., a major chain of national auto retailers, relocated to metro Atlanta from New York. In recent months, Tennessee announced three projects, all valued at more than $1 billion each, by units of Wacker Chemie AG, Volkswagen AG and Hemlock Semiconductor Group. North Carolina last week welcomed a new Apple Inc. data warehouse.
Meanwhile, state economic development officers say they are pursuing a higher number of relocation prospects. "The level of competition on retention, expansion and relocation projects has become more intense," said North Carolina Deputy Secretary of Commerce Dale Carroll.
Development agencies across the Southeast are therefore pushing their recruiting machines into overdrive. Gwinnett County, where NCR is moving its headquarters, revamped its development strategy in 2007 to prevent the slowing of the area's red-hot job growth. Nick Masino, the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce's vice president for economic development, says the organization hired seven new staff and created national and global marketing teams.
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Since then, the number of companies the agency is courting soared to 36 this year compared with seven in the first six months of 2007. The Gwinnett Chamber has won five projects this year—including a 75-job expansion of Habasit America, a Suwanee, Ga., belting company, and a 300-job unit of California's YesVideo Inc., which transfers VHS to DVD. The agency says it brought at least 5,000 jobs to the county in the past 24 months. Half the companies it is pursuing are based in the Midwest.
