North Carolina will now count work-from-home hires toward incentive project goals
The state of North Carolina once again amended its popular Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) program, which the state uses to lure corporate expansions, in light of the massive changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state’s Economic Investment Committee voted on Tuesday to allow employees working from home in North Carolina to be counted toward hiring goals for companies that are getting incentives from the state.
North Carolina’s JDIG program pays company’s annually if they meet specific hiring and investment goals.
Previously, employees working from home-office locations in the state had to be specifically marked in the original terms of the JDIG agreement to be eligible, according to David Rhoades, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Commerce.
But with the coronavirus sending hordes of workers — and potential new hires — home for the foreseeable future, the Commerce Department was expecting a wave of JDIG recipients to ask for modifications to their agreements to include employees working from home.
The amendment — which will last from 2020-2021 — was meant to streamline that modification process, Rhoades said in an email.
Rhoades added that the changes do not allow out-of-state workers to count toward hiring goals.
In May, the Economic Investment Committee modified the JDIG program to give companies more time to meet hiring goals because of the pandemic.
The Commerce Department now allows companies to take their 2020 job-hiring and investment obligations and “carry them forward” one year to 2021. Essentially if a company had agreed to hire 100 employees per year between 2020 and 2025, that company can now push those hiring targets to the period of 2021 to 2026.
The hiring and capital investment requirements will not be eliminated as part of the relief, but companies will now have more time to meet them.
Tuesday’s Economic Investment Committee meeting was the first time in history that the group met completely virtually. A person who spent time in the Education Building on Wilmington Street in Raleigh tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, the building had to receive a deep cleaning, sending home workers from the Commerce and Education departments.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 2:18 PM.
