The Ripple Effect: New Development = Job Creation

The Ripple Effect: New Development = Job Creation

Pretend for a moment you want to build a new house. What do you need?

Raw materials, certainly. Foundation, wood, brick, glass, etc. You’ll need labor, too. Someone has to design the place, transport your raw materials, and assemble them into something that won’t tip over when the big bad wolf comes around.

Yet another someone will have to come by to inspect the place, to double-check your house is wolf-proof. In turn, someone will have to record that information, and keep it. And for every “someone” in the process, expect a team of people to support them, to keep them honest, to make sure everything is done safely and legally.

You can probably tell where this hypothetical ends up. Even a build as relatively simple as a single residential dwelling helps sustain a host of jobs – the good-paying kind borne by those who can announce their occupation with raised chin and proud voice.

Beyond the housing metaphor, the impact of new commercial, industrial, and standard office development on job creation reaches far beyond new construction. After all, once your house is built you’ll need furniture, groceries, transportation, and entertainment. Or, as an economist might call them: jobs, jobs, and – you guessed it! – more jobs.

And because new developments, especially those on a large scale, can take years to build out, the seemingly “temporary” construction jobs at the base of it all also provide employment opportunities for decades.

If you’re not an economist, that comparison may ring hollow. Maybe you already have a decent-paying job, and maybe you lament the new development for its impact on your town’s vistas, culture, or overall quality of life.

Those of you in that camp, consider this: More good jobs means more opportunity for those in the community to succeed. And when enough of your neighbors join you in that golden circle of success, the community begins to not just demand more, but demand better.

You by yourself may not be able to pay the tax to fund that new rail line right to the heart of downtown, or widen that highway to ease the burden of traffic, or build that new school to reduce class sizes, but as a successful community, you can afford it.

Yes – new development means more jobs. And yes – more jobs means more growth. But growth is GOOD and feeds into a strong economy. When it comes to not just making your community bigger, but better, it’s the kind of economy-positive development we should strive to achieve.

Based on our 2018 Annual Report:

• 74% of local jobs we assisted with attraction, expansion or retention were in our target clusters
• 27 new and expanding companies called SCV “home”
• 1,560 new high-quality jobs were created locally

Now, let’s go out and build that metaphorical house!

LEARN MORE about current development and job creation trends as well as forecasted targets…

READ ON for even more reasons to be optimistic about community growth…

The Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation (SCVEDC) is a unique private / public partnership representing the united effort of regional industry and government leaders. The SCVEDC utilizes an integrated approach to attracting, retaining and expanding a diversity of businesses in the Santa Clarita Valley, especially those in key industry clusters, by offering competitive business services and other resources.