Who said all the Call Center Incentives were Gone?

Just read the Site Selection Groups’ Economic Incentives market Report for December 2011 and it became very clear to me that incentives can still be a significant inducement to business locations and drive localized economic development.

The December reports references 186 projects garnering incentives of more than $750 million. The largest project listed is a $250 million dollar incentive to Prudential Financial for a Business Services project. At one time call centers were all the rage and seemed to Economic development people to be the holy grail. Good dependable jobs paying a decent if not great wage. For many years the incentive gravy train ran on and on, with one jurisdiction outbidding another. Capital grants, interest free loans a design built call center for $1, those were the salad days. We may not be in the salad days any longer when we search for new call center locations but there are still incentives available. Two of the projects on the December report are for call centers: one for Sprint in Bristol TN and the other for Home Depot in Kennesaw, GA, each worth $2.7 million.

What form these incentives take is not known, they could be tax credits, wage subsidies, loans or grants, regardless they are incentives and remind us that we always need to be aware of what could be available to our organization if only we can ask the right questions.