GE to bring 300 jobs to N.O.
NEW ORLEANS — The finance arm of General Electric Co. announced Friday that it will open an information technology center in New Orleans that will employ 300 people.
The jobs with GE Capital will pay salaries ranging from $60,000 and $100,000. All positions will be new hires and will include jobs in the fields of computer engineering, data management, network services and computing operations.
The center, which will provide software development and IT support for GE’s financial services business, is expected to begin operating later this year. Its total payroll is expected to exceed $28 million when the center is fully staffed by the end of 2015.
A site for the center’s offices hasn’t been picked, but the company is expected to refurbish an existing property within the city limits.
Brackett Denniston, a senior vice president and general counsel for GE, said the company picked New Orleans because it was “the right business decision to make for us.”
Louisiana offered GE an incentive package that includes a $10.7 million “performance-based” grant to reimburse the company for the costs of relocation, recruitment, office equipment and lease expenses. The state also agreed to provide $500,000 annually for 10 years to fund software development academic programs at Louisiana higher-education institutions.
Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret said GE Capital also is expected to apply for the state’s Quality Jobs incentive program, which offers a 6 percent annual rebate on payroll expenses for 10 years.
Gov. Bobby Jindal and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu hailed the announcement as a tribute to the region’s embrace of digital media, software development and telecommunications industries.
Jindal said New Orleans “literally beat out hundreds of other cities across the country” to land the GE project.
“This is not a gift, and we had to compete for it,” Landrieu said. “This was an international competition.”
The state said it began cultivating IT-related economic development opportunities with GE in late 2010, and those efforts intensified in collaboration with local partners GNO Inc., the New Orleans Business Alliance and the New Orleans Mayor’s Office in 2011 as GE Capital was conducting a nationwide search for its new IT Center of Excellence.
The project is a “big win” and a “game-changer” for the city, Landrieu said.
“We’re seeing a city rise to a new era, one in which New Orleans will shine as a beacon of career opportunities in good-paying sectors like technology and jobs of the future,” Jindal said. “This new New Orleans will combine the best of our past and the most promising jobs of the future.”
“We found it to be a great and supportive environment with fantastic people,” GE’s Denniston said. “This is one of America’s signature cities and one of America’s signature states, and we very much wanted to be part of that fantastic renaissance.”