State chief economist James Wooster said in an April report that New Jersey’s economic recovery was “sluggish by any standard,” as the manufacturing, financial services and information sectors have continued to lose jobs since the recession.
In 2014, Atlantic City hemorrhaged jobs as a result of several casino closures. In January, Mercedes-Benz said it would move its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta, taking 1,000 jobs. Overall job growth is expected to lag the nation through at least 2022, according to state data.
It hasn’t all been bad news. Some companies, including Amazon.com and Destination Maternity Corp have been lured into New Jersey. Others decided to stay and expand, including Actavis Inc [AILC.UL], Sandoz Inc and Burlington Coat Factory.
Since February 2010, New Jersey’s recessionary low point, 186,000 private jobs have been created. To respond to the changes in biotech and pharmaceuticals, the administration restructured some of its best colleges, including Christie’s merger of most of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into Rutgers University, to make it easier to do clinical trials.
In 2013, the state streamlined its tax incentive program, which had been overly complex and outdated. The program requires companies to certify they have made capital investments and created or preserved jobs before receiving incentives. Since then, New Jersey has approved $2.2 billion in subsidies but so far only given out $603,500.
“Those will start ramping up over the course of the next couple years, and I think that we’re going to have great growth,” said Michele Brown, CEO of Choose New Jersey, a private nonprofit touting the state’s attributes, one of several officials with Guadagno at the Philadelphia biotech convention.
Guadagno is counting on these incentives to boost employment. Christie will have to hope voters hear a similar message.
“If I can get a seat at your table, if I can sit down and tell you what the tax credits are, what the incentives are, how this partnership you’re looking at right here works very hard to make sure you get an answer, you may not always get the answer that you want, but you get an answer in a timely fashion, then companies are at least going to look at us,” she said.
(Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by David Gaffen)
Article Appeared @http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/30/us-usa-election-christie-new-jersey-idUSKCN0PA22420150630