Richard C.D. FlemingPresident and CEO
St. Louis emerged as the winner in the economic development competition to land 300 well paying, new Unisys Corp. [www.unisys.com] IT jobs downtown. St. Louis was in a head-to-head competition with Montgomery, Ala.; Salt Lake City, Utah; and suburban Minneapolis-Saint Paul for these high-paying, high-skilled positions.
At a news conference at the RCGA this past Thursday morning with Gov. Jay Nixon, Mayor Francis Slay, Unisys Corp. CEO Ed Coleman, Unisys President of Federal Systems Ted Davies, and our State and local economic development partners, this Fortune 500 worldwide information technology company announced it will locate its Application Modernization Center of Excellence (AMCOE) downtown. The company plans to employ 300 IT professionals in software architecture, design, development, maintenance, modernization and support by 2012.
The RCGA has been working with Unisys since February, in collaboration with our regional economic development partners, including The Missouri Partnership, the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the St. Louis Development Corporation and the City of St. Louis.
The new Unisys Center of Excellence will focus on building, operating and maintaining leading-edge software applications for Unisys federal government and commercial clients. The center will eventually deliver value-added and differentiated services, such as Apple iPhone and Apple iPad application development and data warehousing.
In addition to our IT talent base, company officials cited our low cost of living, financial incentives, public transportation --- especially proximity to MetroLink and Metro stations --- and a vibrant downtown as reasons for selecting St. Louis in its national site location search.
The new jobs created at the Center, which is expected to move into its permanent downtown St. Louis location later this year, will pay an average annual salary of $55,000 to $60,000. RCGA Director of Economic Policy and Analysis Ruth Sergenian estimates the 300 new direct jobs will create another 335 new indirect jobs and $82.4 million combined direct and indirect annual impact on our region's economy.
The Unisys recruitment underscores our region𠏋 strength as an IT market. The recent Market Street Services comprehensive "Regional Cluster Analysis for the St. Louis Region" indicates Greater St. Louis has become increasingly attractive to companies that require IT talent.
As we noted in the news conference, IT workers make up some 3.5% of the St. Louis region𠏋 total workforce, accounting for 46,270 IT jobs in 2009. This compares to the U.S. average in this industry of 2.9%, giving St. Louis a 22% higher concentration of IT jobs than the U.S. overall. In fact, the St. Louis region has added nearly 12,000 net new jobs in the IT sector since 1999.
Congratulations to the entire RCGA Economic Development Team, particularly to RCGA Director of Business Recruitment Lori Becklenberg, and our State and local economic development partners, on this outstanding economic development win for the region. The RCGA had worked with the Missouri Partnership, the Missouri Department of Economic Development, and the St. Louis Development Corporation in recruiting the Unisys deal.
As I noted in Thursday𠏋 news conference, the announcement of the manufacturing deal in St. Peters by Austrian-based Alpla and this week𠏋 Unisys deal closing, are hopefully indicators that economic development and job expansion decisions by companies are beginning to take place once again, after a long recession. I noted that the current RCGA Economic Development Pipeline now includes 50 prospects for which the bi-state region and our economic development partners are 𧗽n the hunt.? These 50 prospects represent an aggregate potential of some 13,200 jobs and nearly $1 billion in prospective capitalinvestment.
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