Recent News

As a part of the Digital Business Association out of Berlin, SIBB’s “Berlin Meets the USA” event series, the Georgia Department of Economic Development hosted a cybersecurity-focused webinar in January. The department and SIBB brought together experts and companies from both sides of the Atlantic to highlight the current cybe...Continue Reading

Renewed site selection activity, cautious optimism on foreign direct investment (FDI), continued skilled labor shortages and a shakeup of the global supply chain are among key findings of a 2021 outlook survey on corporate location trends. The findings were released today by the Site Selectors Guild, the only association o...Continue Reading

For the last five years, Emsi has been tracking how communities are faring in their efforts to attract and develop talent. Our Talent Attraction Index equally weighs six metrics: migration, growth of jobs and skilled workers, regional competitiveness, job openings, and education attainment to rank each county and create ou...Continue Reading

If you’re like most professionals, you spent a lot of time in virtual meetings in 2020 and will in 2021 — more than you ever thought possible in, say, 2015. And if you’re like most professionals meeting virtually, you’ve lamented the fact that they could be better. Virtual meetings suffer many of th...Continue Reading

In the wake of coronavirus shutting down offices around the world, remote work has become the new norm. So how do you make workplaces safer post-pandemic?  In the 15th episode of our Leadership Lessons series, Comparably CEO Jason Nazar speaks with an expert on the topic, Envoy founder/CEO Larry Gadea, wh...Continue Reading

Faced with the urgent need to both enable remote work and safeguard job-site activity, U.S. construction firms significantly ramped up tech investments in 2020, condensing three years worth of adoption into a single year. According to JLL’s State of Construction Tech report, mature technologies — including digital collaboration platforms, virtual scanning tools...Continue Reading

When the global COVID-19 crisis swept through the country in early 2020, people from all walks of life found themselves caught in the crosshairs. Fortunately, U.S. legislators acted swiftly in March to pass The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The $2 trillion economic relief package aims to addres...Continue Reading

Although we continue to believe the “average” college student gets a job after graduating from college, the fact is that two-thirds are employed while in college, and four out of 10 are employed full-time. A lot of students actually bring significant work experience to college with them — half o...Continue Reading

In early December 2020, the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) and the Birmingham Education Foundation partnered to create LaunchED, a pilot program for talent retention that seeks to expose students to internship and job opportunities in Birmingham and prepare them with life-readiness tools needed for success. Program managers are seeking employer...Continue Reading

Tacoma, Pierce County, WA (March 11, 2021) — Tacoma-Pierce County had good reason to celebrate this week, even during a global pandemic, after learning that SAFE Boats International was awarded a $20M lead contract for the U.S. Navy to start construction of the Mark VI patrol boats headed for th...Continue Reading

Saeed Shareef BADLY wanted to get out of the restaurant industry. Shareef, 30, had started working as a server a decade earlier, after realizing he couldn’t afford the price of a four-year college degree. He’d done stints at Buffalo Wild Wings, Papa John’s and the Cheesecake Factory. But the money wasn’t great, the wor...Continue Reading

Governor Brian P. Kemp, in conjunction with the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD), today announced that more than 16,000 jobs were created across all regions of the state by economic development projects in Georgia during the first half of fiscal year 2021, generating nearly $6 billion in new investments. Thi...Continue Reading

As we enter a new year, you may be wondering how to include remote workers in your workforce attraction strategy. Government regulations and efforts to slow the pandemic have forced workplaces to embrace remote work options. 88% OF BUSINESSES all over the world authorized their employees to work from home due t...Continue Reading

COVID-19 didn’t just upset the established model of corporate site selection in 2020; the global pandemic obliterated it. Site Selection Magazine’s annual survey of site selection consultants, conducted in late November, revealed five ways in which the global outbreak of coronavirus significantly altered how companies choose their business facility locations: Instead o...Continue Reading

Joensuu, a city of 76,000 in Eastern Finland, is home to the European Forest Institute, appropriately enough. It’s also the home base of Valamis, a leading IT company specializing in the digitalization of learning. That may not be a new discipline, but it will take on greater urgency as remot...Continue Reading

Crestone Development, a division of Crestone Companies, has announced that they are making a major investment in downtown Watertown.  Crestone has purchased five downtown properties, book-ending on the East and West ends of Kemp Avenue.  Crestone Owner, Eric Skott says the plans are to work to preserve the character of downtown whil...Continue Reading

Stop trying to save Rural America. Efforts to write it off as “disappearing” are complicated by the 60 million Americans who call a rural community home. We must recognize that innovation, diversity of ideas and people, and new concepts don’t need to be imported to rural communities – they’re already there. Rura...Continue Reading

CJ Foods USA Inc., a U.S.-based affiliate of South Korean-based global lifestyle company CJ CheilJedang, plans to build a new 700,000–square-foot Asian food production facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The new facility, planned for Foundation Park, will result in more than 600 new full-time jobs by 2025 and include automated state-of-the-ar...Continue Reading

Seven years ago the Chamber kicked workforce and education initiatives into high gear, establishing INTERN South Bend Region as a program to encourage internship development and provide social and professional development opportunities for summer interns. This was quickly followed by leading the collaborative development of South Bend RegionManufacturing Day (MF...Continue Reading

If you are anything like me, reading or writing the word “COVID” causes mental fatigue that seems to be exacerbated by the day. The entire world (but for the sake of this blog we’ll focus on the distribution center and logistics industry), is feverishly assessing how this pandemic is affectin...Continue Reading

While the site selection industry is constantly evolving, no one anticipated the changes that COVID-19 would bring in 2020. COVID-19 has impacted what types of projects are in the marketplace and how executives, consultants and economic developers are adapting the site selection process. This article will explore some of thes...Continue Reading

As we roll into the next decade, it is evident that exponential growth in technology and economic conditions will be key drivers in the changes over the next decade that will impact workforce, real estate and logistics, among other things. These changes will have a dramatic impact on site selectio...Continue Reading

Top 10 Economic Development Predictions for 2021 1. Awareness and appreciation for the ED profession grows. There is nothing better than unprecedented economic disruptions to bring the value of economic development to the forefront. This is similar to the aftermath of the Great Recession with one major exception: back then, we wer...Continue Reading

Our attitudes about food and beverage influence the brands we purchase, how we socialize, where we shop — and sometimes even where we live. Our expectations are high when it comes to product mix and availability. When our wants and needs are not met quickly, as was the case a...Continue Reading