Biz

SC Upstate Losing 750 Jobs

COMMAND ECONOMIC PROJECT GOES “POP” FOR PALMETTO STATE There will be no ebullient press releases … no “it’s a great day in South Carolina” quotes from self-styled “Jobs Governor” Nikki Haley. Why not?  South Carolina lost out on its bid to land 500 jobs from Sealed Air Corporation – the…

COMMAND ECONOMIC PROJECT GOES “POP” FOR PALMETTO STATE

There will be no ebullient press releases … no “it’s a great day in South Carolina” quotes from self-styled “Jobs Governor” Nikki Haley.

Why not?  South Carolina lost out on its bid to land 500 jobs from Sealed Air Corporation – the company that makes Bubble Wrap and Cryovac, among other packaging products.

But it’s worse than that …

Not only did the Palmetto State fail to land 500 new jobs, it’s losing at least 750 existing jobs in Greenville and Duncan, S.C.  Sealed Air is opening its new global headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

South Carolina and North Carolina competed hard for Sealed Air’s business – with both sides offering generous taxpayer-funded incentives.

According to sources familiar with the project, South Carolina’s incentives package was actually larger than North Carolina’s (no surprise there), but the company ended up going with the Tar Heel State because its workforce is, well, smarter.

In fact South Carolina crony capitalists admit as much, with Greenville’s top command economist telling the local paper Sealed Air officials found “a lot more depth in financial and IT talent in the Charlotte region.”

Again, no surprise there …

Another reason the South Carolina press isn’t talking about?  North Carolina’s recent individual income tax cut – a major draw for corporate management teams.

“North Carolina’s business-friendly climate continues to attract corporate headquarters to the Charlotte region,” N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory said. “We welcome Sealed Air’s senior executive team, division and line managers and staff to the Queen City where they will find big city opportunity with a great quality of life.”

Obviously it would be hypocritical for this website to blast Haley too hard for “losing” an economic development deal … seeing as we repeatedly blast her for “winning” them.  In fact depending how big the taxpayer-funded “bribe” to Sealed Air was, it may be a good thing our state lost out on that announcement – although this case is different because there’s really no way to put a positive spin on the 750 jobs that the state is losing .

Of course Haley should know all about that … 

Anyway, S.C. Department of Commerce officials were not immediately available for comment regarding the Sealed Air announcement.

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35 comments

CNSYD July 24, 2014 at 9:10 am

Sic Willie is concerned about appearing hypocritical? Wonders will never cease.

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Jackie Chiles July 24, 2014 at 9:13 am

The “smarter workforce” is a farcical argument. If you’re too stupid to hire people who are smart enough to work for your company, it’s not the state you’re located in’s fault. It’s your own fault. Nothing about being located in SC means you must only hire people born and raised in SC.

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Manray9 July 24, 2014 at 10:45 am

There is something to be said for certain locations having deeper pools of talent and education than others. It is just a fact.

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Slartibartfast July 24, 2014 at 2:18 pm

Once again, Chiles rules! If there is ANY place in the state with IT techies oozing out the edges, it is the Upstate. This is not to say that there are not smarty-pantses in the Midlands or the Lowcountry. What South Carolina needs, however, are existing Tech Schools teaching heavy industry IT and assembly skills the way they do in the Upstate. Beaufort’s Tech has begun doing just that. All of this has little or nothing to do with, the apparently loathed here, Nikki Haley. Will is right about the package offered the bubblemaker, btw.

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J. Jones July 24, 2014 at 9:19 am

In fact South Carolina crony capitalists admit as much, with Greenville’s top command economist telling the local paper Sealed Air officials found “a lot more depth in financial and IT talent in the Charlotte region.”

One wonders how many financial and IT guys it takes to make bubble wrap.

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CNSYD July 24, 2014 at 9:23 am

Apparently you have not been informed that facts are not allowed to refute Sic Willie’s stories. BTW, ever notice that job adds virtually never get mentioned by Sic Willie? But then he promised imbalance.

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Bible Thumper July 24, 2014 at 9:42 am

No manufacturing is to be done in Charlotte. It is all white collar management and customer service jobs. The larger airport with more direct flights was also a key reason for moving to a location right next to the airport.

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CNSYD July 24, 2014 at 10:16 am

And the employees will live in Fort Mill, Lake Wylie, etc.

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vicupstate July 24, 2014 at 5:19 pm

Not necessarily. Unlike the jobs Fort Mill got, these employees WILL have to move. They can move to EITHER side of the state line.

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CNSYD July 24, 2014 at 8:48 pm

My point was that in spite of how “wonderful” conditions are alleged to be in Charlotte, employees seem to find living better on the SC side.

utah July 24, 2014 at 10:32 am

Correct. Which means that not only is the upstate missing out on adding 800 new high paying jobs, it’s also losing 500 high paying jobs that are headed to charlotte. There is no way to spin this other than it’s bad for the upstate–far worse, in fact, that Charlotte’s “loss” of jobs to Fort Mill a couple of weeks ago, because those employees don’t have to move from their current homes.

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J. Jones July 24, 2014 at 4:44 pm

Bubble wrap takes that much on “overhead” employees? Who knew? ;)

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EJB July 24, 2014 at 9:59 am

I’m going to agree with Jackie Chiles, not a lot of jobs go to the locals when a company moves in like that. When GM opened the Saturn plant in Springhill Tenn. they were bragging about 3,000+ jobs they were going to create. Fewer than half went to Tennesseans, the rest went to people that moved there. They had to build oodles of new roads, schools and other government buildings immediately while waiting for tax dollars to ooze in from the new residents. Also, more people more stores, which brought in more people. The kicker is, they probably funded all that growth with bonds over 20 or 30 years and Saturn is now defunct.

When a company moves into a place like this they do hire some local talent, probably more local talent for manufacturing jobs than white collar jobs, but a good part of the hiring is from out of the area.

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utah July 24, 2014 at 2:14 pm

Doesn’t change that the upstate is losing 800 jobs, and that 500 additional jobs would have been added in SC. Even if folks moved to Greenville, they would now be living there, paying SC taxes, spending their money there. Instead, it’ll be leaving the state with those 800 jobs.

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anon. July 24, 2014 at 10:04 am

NIKKI HALEY ONLY CARES ABOUT NIKKI HALEY!

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idcydm July 24, 2014 at 10:07 am

The
jobs will be moved over the next three years from Connecticut,
Wisconsin and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey. – See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elmwood-park-based-sealed-air-corp-s-move-to-n-c-will-cost-n-j-200-jobs-1.1055679#sthash.PWrVeHql.dpufThe jobs will be moved over the next three years from Connecticut, Wisconsin and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey.

The
jobs will be moved over the next three years from Connecticut,
Wisconsin and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey. – See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elmwood-park-based-sealed-air-corp-s-move-to-n-c-will-cost-n-j-200-jobs-1.1055679#sthash.PWrVeHql.dpuf
The
jobs will be moved over the next three years from Connecticut,
Wisconsin and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey. – See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elmwood-park-based-sealed-air-corp-s-move-to-n-c-will-cost-n-j-200-jobs-1.1055679#sthash.PWrVeHql.dpuf
The
jobs will be moved over the next three years from Connecticut,
Wisconsin and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey. – See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elmwood-park-based-sealed-air-corp-s-move-to-n-c-will-cost-n-j-200-jobs-1.1055679#sthash.PWrVeHql.dpuf
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elmwood-park-based-sealed-air-corp-s-move-to-n-c-will-cost-n-j-200-jobs-1.1055679
The
jobs will be moved over the next three years from Connecticut,
Wisconsin and South Carolina, as well as New Jersey. – See more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elmwood-park-based-sealed-air-corp-s-move-to-n-c-will-cost-n-j-200-jobs-1.1055679#sthash.PWrVeHql.dpuf

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utah July 24, 2014 at 1:31 pm

Correct. A total of 1200 jobs are being relocated to Charlotte. Nearly 500 of those are being moved from Greenville.

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idcydm July 24, 2014 at 6:15 pm

And I’ll bet if the good employees want to move they will still have a job.

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Rocky July 24, 2014 at 10:21 am

Once again, Charlotte wins, Up State losses. This is like a broken record. Reason for the decision – we have stupid employees – we that makes sense – better to hire educated North Carolinians over SC meth-heads.

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Jackie Chiles July 24, 2014 at 12:11 pm

I know right. If only we had roads connecting the two states. Then maybe someone with a NC education could drive south to work at a SC company.

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Rocky July 24, 2014 at 1:30 pm

Well lots used to drive to Wells Fargo.

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Bible Thumper July 24, 2014 at 10:30 am

Until fits or someone delves into to the reason for SC’s lower workforce participation rate and its drop, we won’t understand it’s significance or how to correct it.

Part of it is baby boom ageing and people are living longer. Some may be because retirees are moving to SC. SC adult population has grown 4.0% since Haley took office while the nations has only grown 3.1%.

I also believe there is abuse of Social Security disability benefits. Those on disability don’t count as workforce participants. With all the advances in medicine, why should there be increasing numbers of disabled people? The state with the worst WF participation rate also has the highest SS disability rate. West Virginia is notorious for disability fraud. SS actually pays attorneys to challenge disability claim denials.

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CNSYD July 24, 2014 at 8:56 pm

I don’t think SS attorneys are exact;y paid by SS in the sense that they work for SS. The appellant hires an attorney who does not work for SS to appeal their case. If the appellant prevails, the attorneys have a deal where they get their payment from the settlement money before the appellant gets what is left.

“Crazy” pay is what a lot of people on SSI call it as they are declared by the medical profession as unfit for work because of mental health issues. These people are not going to “get better” if they truly have these issues.

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Bible Thumper July 24, 2014 at 10:55 pm

For every 18 workers who pays in to the SS one SSDI recipient receives on average $1,140 per month. That is $63.33 per worker per month paid by the worker and employer. May not seem like much but considering everything else tax payers must pay for, it’s a lot.

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CNSYD July 25, 2014 at 8:15 am

I know a couple of people who get SSI checks for permanent disability. The checks are in the range of $650 per month. Haven’t seen one at the level you are talking about.

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Manray9 July 24, 2014 at 10:43 am

I read the announcement. I didn’t see one word about income taxes. Perhaps that’s a little Sic spin on the news that wasn’t really there? I read the reasons given were: 1. better international airline connectivity. 2. deeper pool of IT and financial talent in Charlotte.

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Soft Sigh from Hell July 24, 2014 at 11:19 am

“a lot more depth in financial and IT talent in the Charlotte region.”

What? What? You mean your citizens’ education and experience actually counts for something? We can’t fix it simply by bribing some legislator or calling Strom?

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Deo Vindice SC July 24, 2014 at 12:51 pm

There is no mistake about it, couple that with Nikki’s re-election, Tango being allowed to live and roam free in SC ? ” The Darwin Award ” – South Carolina – you won !!!

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Hal900 July 24, 2014 at 12:59 pm

Haley to Keels quick fire up the Tahoes. ..we’ve got to get up there and start damage control before Tom Erwin gets there dammit.

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Uh huh July 24, 2014 at 1:36 pm

If SC continues to embrace the model of taking taxes from the little people(small business & those fortunate enough to have a job) to try to woo big corporations to the state then it’s only natural to expect that method of recruiting will not only end up like every other government boondoggle, but more importantly, places like Charlotte have A LOT MORE REVENUE with which to compete in said manner than any other county in SC.

So if you’re gonna start a war, you better make sure you have enough ammo to fight it(money in this case), and SC doesn’t.

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Deo Vindice SC July 24, 2014 at 3:01 pm

Nikki is offended at that remark ! Get your shit together !

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E. Norma Scok July 24, 2014 at 2:55 pm

So it DOES appear that upstate housing prices will be going down. Hot damn! Bring on the lake bitches! The Ohio-ans have won…buy my house in CHS..PLEASE

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Bible Thumper July 24, 2014 at 3:11 pm

Five of the “57” States are now exempt from Obama Care.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/24/obamacare-free-getaway-for-5-us-territories/

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Squishy123 July 24, 2014 at 4:00 pm

One of the Campbell fatboys just got a job, all he had to do was ask Haley for one.

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Deo Vindice SC July 24, 2014 at 4:02 pm

If Nikki loses hers, we have a positive for SC for a change !

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