Good afternoon,
The long-running effort to bring blue collar jobs to the state seems to be bearing fruit.
This week we had a report from the Baltimore Sun that Dart Container (home of the red cups for parties) will build a distribution center in Delaware.
The initial report came from the Baltimore Sun. Maryland will see the loss of upwards of 100 jobs from the move as about 100 jobs move to Delaware. (Dart has not confirmed the report).
Translation company TransPerfect also confirmed it is scouting the Wilmington market for a job site.
Both moves make sense.
Sites are becoming available for distribution centers in northern Delaware as the former GM Boxwood plant is redeveloped and a site near Delaware City was purchased by a Kansas City commercial developer.
An outside possibility is the former Claymont steel mill site, although developers are said to be looking at more of a mixed use approach.
While Amazon grabs the headlines, other companies have been scouting East Coast locations.
On the office side, translations and business services company TransPerfect – despite a contentious sale process that wound up in Chancery Court and led to its state of incorporation moving to Nevada – is looking at the Wilmington area. (See story above).
Delaware, with its large pool of financial and corporate services talent, matches up with TransPerfect.
Turning again to blue collar jobs, Dot Foods is holding hiring events as work continues on its distribution in the Bear area. DOT breaks down large shipments of canned goods and redistributes the goods to grocers and others.
None of this means that the state is out of the woods, despite a jobless rate that has dropped below 4 percent.
An economic expansion that has run nearly a decade shows signs of losing steam.
The looming loss of 500-plus jobs at Barclays is a sobering reminder that banking positions are mobile and subject to factors that go beyond the cost of doing business.
Barclays is moving jobs to northern New Jersey, an area with high housing costs and sky-high property taxes after receiving hefty incentives over years from the Garden State.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase, the state’s largest for-profit employer, has acquired a large tract across the Delaware line in Pennsylvania. No word on its plans for the site.
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