North Carolina named best state for business by top industry magazine
North Carolina earned another business accolade this week, as a leading industry magazine named North Carolina its “2022 State of the Year.”
Business Facilities, which reports on economic project site selections, heralded the Tar Heel State for its business-friendly climate that ushered “another banner year” for job creation, including pledges from Vinfast (7,500 jobs), Wolfspeed (1,800 jobs), and Boom Supersonic (1,760 jobs.)
The magazine had also bestowed its top honor on North Carolina in 2020.
“Paired with world-class education and R&D resources, the support of incentives and programs from organizations at all levels for a variety of industries, including high-growth sectors such as electric vehicles, made the state our choice for top recognition this year,” Business Facilities Editorial Director Anne Cosgrove said in a statement Wednesday.
The magazine credited North Carolina’s bipartisan efforts with fostering its favorable business approach. Gov. Roy Cooper is a Democrat while both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly are controlled by Republicans. Cooper has actively courted company executives during their selection searches while the legislature has, in recent years, bumped up state appropriation funding for site infrastructure.
But the organization orchestrating the overall recruitment process is the public-private Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. According to its CEO, Christopher Chung, the state currently has 235 active projects representing more than 100,000 possible new jobs and around $112 billion in investment.
Historically, most state-backed economic projects never reach their original hiring goals, though economic leaders stress that even partial completion can still deliver significant benefits to communities from the mountains to the coast.
“North Carolina is the best state in the nation to do business, and large companies like VinFast, Wolfspeed, Eli Lilly and Boom Supersonic have noticed and taken advantage of that,” Chung said in a statement following the Business Facilities award. “We have a world-class education system, a highly skilled workforce, a strong commitment to clean energy and sustainability, the most competitive tax environment in the country, and a demonstrated bipartisan approach to economic development policy.”
In July, CNBC also named North Carolina its top state for business in 2022.
But not all state rankings have been positive. In each of the past two years, the advocacy nonprofit OxFam has listed North Carolina as the “worst state to work,” giving particularly low marks for worker protections and rights to organize.
The Tar Heel State is routinely among the country’s least unionized states, with only 3.4% of the workforce represented by a labor union, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 1:17 PM with the headline "North Carolina named best state for business by top industry magazine."
