In one of the largest economic progress projects in Austin’s history, carmaker Tesla announced that it would build a $1.1 billion meetinghouse in Travis County that will employ 5,000 people.
The plant salaries, which will be at 2,100 acres off Texas 130 and Harold Green Road, will begin at $35,000 a year, adding benefits, providing employment opportunities and investments in a southeastern county component that, officials say, is in great need. That.
It will produce the electric van Cybertruck from the electric vehicle manufacturer, as well as when to build your Model Y SUV. Tesla officials said they plan to open the plant until the third quarter of this year.
The resolution comes after the Travis County Board of Commissioners and the Del Valle Independent School District School Board passed tax exemptions for the project, which is a minimum of about $60 million combined.
California-based Tesla, led by high-level billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of approximately $300 billion.
Local advocates of the assignment are pronouncing the planned plant, dubbed a “gigafactory” through Tesla, as an imminent source of new jobs and a major condiment for the local economy, especially in the midst of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Tesla had also thought of Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a location, the company in the past said the Travis County site was their favorite.
“For me, the most exciting thing about some tactics is that the timing couldn’t be better, in terms of the economic effect on the pandemic,” said Austin economist Jon Hockenyos, whose company, TXP Inc., was hired through Travis County to help design its incentive agreement with Tesla.
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He said so-called average jobs, those requiring postsecondary education but not a four-year degree, were disproportionately removed from the pandemic payroll, but they are exactly the kind of positions Tesla will seek to fill.
“We’re in recession, and the recession is hitting the toughest people who are likely to occupy those positions,” Hockenyos said. “Many jobs (lost as a result of the pandemic) will not return” for the foreseeable future.
Ray Perryman, president of Perryman Group, a Waco-based economics studio and study company, said the presence of a Tesla meetinghouse in the Austin metropolitan area “brings many benefits.”
“At an immediate level, it gives a giant number of jobs in other grades and education that will directly gain advantages for the economy and have an effect on other segments. It also has the prospect of creating a consolidation effect of other businesses in the region,” Perryman said. “Perhaps most importantly, it will further broaden the region’s technological footprint.
Tesla executives and school district officials said the plant would provide educational, vocational, and career opportunities in fields such as robotics and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
However, the assignment has many skeptics at the local level. Some criticized the perception of taxpayer-funded subsidies for a multibillion-dollar company, while others criticized Tesla’s record of protection and industrial relations and suggested that local officials, albeit unsuccessfully, delay the passage of incentive agreements so that simply more safeguards can be made. put in place.
Nathan Jensen, a professor of government at the University of Texas, said Tesla’s incentives are “a bad taxpayer investment” because small businesses are final in our community “because of the pandemic.
Jensen, who studies and criticizes taxpayer-funded commercial incentives, has reported in the past studies that seem to indicate that at least three-quarters of these incentive agreements are with corporations that would have invested in a specific region without them.
In the case of the Tesla agreement in particular, he also claimed that the minimum wage of $15 an hour the company had agreed to pay, which equates to $31,200 a year for a full-time worker, counting the benefits, is incredibly low. bar for a manufacturer to remove it.
“They’re looking to rename middle-rated jobs, but they’re low wages,” Jensen said.
Manufacturing jobs in Texas recently paid more than $47,000 a year on average before the coronavirus pandemic, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Tesla said he expected his average salary to be that amount.
Last week, Travis County commissioners voted to pass Tesla tax breaks worth a minimum of about $14 million over 10 years if the company invests $1.1 billion at the plant. The amount of tax relief will increase, especially if Tesla invests more over the 20-year term of the deal.
On July 9, the Del Valle School District approved just over $46 million in tax breaks for the company over 10 years. That number probably wouldn’t replace much, even if Tesla invests more.
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