Indianapolis Economic Development, Inc. (IEDI), announced today that the City of Indianapolis secured commitments for 11,135 jobs and $157 million in private investment from 45 companies in 2009, resulting in one of the best year-end totals of the decade. Thirty of the 45 successful projects were with existing Indianapolis businesses which have agreed to add 4,153 new jobs and retain 6,982 existing jobs.
“The commitment from companies to add and retain more than 11,000 jobs and invest millions of dollars in Indianapolis is a testament to the fact that our city, even during difficult economic times, remains a very competitive place to do business,” said Mayor Greg Ballard. “Companies benefit from our overall low costs of doing business, talented workforce, and central location, all of which are strengths we will use to our advantage as we continue our aggressive pursuit of jobs and investment throughout 2010.”
AIT Laboratories, Gilchrist & Soames, SPG Graphics, Maingate, BioStorage Technologies, Dow, Republic Airways, and Beckman Coulter were among the list of growing companies last year. These companies and others reported an average hourly wage for new and retained jobs of $21.66, which is above the state’s current hourly average wage of $18.32.
“We were fortunate to work with companies from all different industries in 2009, but our focus remains on our targeted industry clusters, which accounted for more than half of our successful projects with life sciences and information technology leading the way in job creation,” said IEDI President and CEO, Scott Miller.
IEDI’s targeted industry clusters include life sciences, advanced manufacturing, motorsports, information technology, energy/clean tech, and logistics.
Since 2008, IEDI has secured commitments from companies to create 7,581 new jobs, retain 13,146 existing jobs, and to invest more than $490 million.
The unemployment rate in Marion County remained stable at 8.8 percent from October to November, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. The Indianapolis-MSA increased just slightly to 8.2 percent during the same time period. Both Marion County and the Indianapolis-MSA continue to trend lower than the state and the nation.
Governor Mitch Daniels and Mayor Greg Ballard joined executives from information technology consulting firm, BC Forward, formerly Bucher + Christian, today to announce the company’s plans to expand its headquarters here, creating 200 jobs by 2012.
BC Forward, which provides consulting, outsourcing and staff augmentation services in systems administration, project management, software development, and strategic IT planning, plans to invest nearly $2 million to expand and equip its Indianapolis headquarters. The company, recently recognized as Indianapolis’ largest IT consulting firm, has grown its workforce 1,000% over the past five years and plans to lease additional space in Market Tower, just west of Monument Circle.
The September unemployment rate in Marion County decreased again in September to 8.4 percent as compared to 8.9 in August, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD).
INDIANAPOLIS (October 27, 2009) – Indianapolis ranks among the top 40 safest cities in the country according to a study released by Forbes.com this week. The study took into account metropolitan cities that have the lowest rates of violent crime, workplace deaths, fatal crashes and natural disasters.