McCrory to unveil ‘NC Competes’ plan for recruiting jobs

Gov. Pat McCrory said Thursday that he’s working on a comprehensive job recruitment plan dubbed NC Competes.

Speaking at a ribbon cutting for the state’s new public-private economic development partnership, McCrory said he’ll be presenting the plan to legislators “literally in the next several weeks.”

McCrory has for months pushed for more funding for incentive grants to lure new employers. He’s said that, at a minimum, the legislature must replenish money available for Job Development Investment Grants. JDIG is the program the state has used to lure dozens of employers over the past two years.

NC Competes, however, will go beyond incentives and include funding for “long-term infrastructure needs” and other projects to make the state more attractive for companies, the governor said. McCrory listed a number of states that he says are courting the same jobs, including Texas, Louisiana and Georgia. Georgia’s governor took a job recruiting trip to the United Kingdom just one week after McCrory was there for the same reason.

“It’s mainly these Southeastern states that these companies are going to move to,” McCrory said.

McCrory declined to provide additional details of the NC Competes plan yet, but he said he’s told corporate executives about it when they seek incentives.

“It is a very competitive world out there,” Commerce Secretary John Skvarla said Thursday. “A company will make a decision that they want to move, and we have to be ready.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2015 at 4:55 PM with the headline "McCrory to unveil ‘NC Competes’ plan for recruiting jobs."