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LabCorp seeks incentives to add jobs in Guilford

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Comments (20)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

(Updated Wednesday, November 11 - 5:14 am)

By Gerald Witt
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — LabCorp is looking to Guilford County as a potential place to expand its operation, even if it means pulling jobs from other areas of the country.

The company will ask Guilford County next week for $373,000 to bring 373 jobs .

Commissioner Kay Cashion said the jobs would mostly be entry-level positions for high school graduates.

“It’s my understanding that they want to consolidate all of their billing operations here from all over the United States,” she said.

Commissioners will hold a hearing on the incentive request Nov. 19.

Burlington-based LabCorp did not respond to questions from the News & Record. The company provides medical laboratory tests and services.

It has more than 28,000 employees worldwide , according to the company Web site.

Wages for those jobs would fall short of the county’s requirement to pay average wages or better to receive the standard incentive of $1,000 per job created.

“I don’t know if I would vote for the whole $373,000,” said Melvin “Skip” Alston, chairman of the county commissioners . “I don’t want to set a precedent, and our threshold is our threshold.”

The average wage for Guilford County is about $40,000 a year, Alston said, and the jobs would pay an average of $26,000.

He said the company instead could receive $500 to $600 per job created, which he might be more inclined to support.

“Especially if it’s 300 some jobs coming to the community,” he said, “and we shouldn’t just brush that off. I would lean more to giving two-thirds of that incentive package.”

If the board approves the incentives, and LabCorp moves here, the money would be paid over three years after the company meets hiring and investment requirements, including $3 million in equipment and furniture .

The Greensboro Economic Development Alliance , which often presents incentive requests from companies, did not comment.

“That may change over the course of the week,” said Andrea Miller , spokeswoman for the alliance.

The incentives were first discussed in an October closed session, commissioners said, and LabCorp may take one of two prospective sites in the county.

Commissioner Paul Gibson said he believes that the company is also researching a site in Lynchburg, Va., and he’s unlikely to support the incentives request.

“You never say never,” he said. “I voted to bring it forward, but I can’t imagine I’ll support it.”

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com

Accompanying Photos

File photo (News & Record)

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Mad Dog

November 10, 2009 - 3:10 pm EST

In the 1980's or 1990's, LabCorp bought out Genetic Designs in Greensboro, closed it, and put a lot of people out of work. They had established their headquarters in Burlington. Now they want to come back to Greensboro, but only if we pay them? Wonder how long that would last?

Can anybody say Dell?

mule4ever

November 10, 2009 - 3:51 pm EST

MD, if you want to be upset about the company closing down Genetic Designs, that's fine.

To compare this request to Dell? That's idiotic.

Kesh

November 10, 2009 - 4:20 pm EST

I kinda agree with MD. Why should we pay them to come to Greensboro. If it is a good investment they should come anyway. If not they need to stay in Burlington. We don't have money to throw away. We have enough issues here in Greensboro that we need to be investing in. Is Greensboro gonna give the small mom & pop business' incentives and investments if they agree to hire????? The answer is NO!!!!

RRVKEV

November 10, 2009 - 4:15 pm EST

Have we not learned our lesson yet? Incentives are nothing more than corporate extorsion.They should be illegal across the board and the playing field would be equal. ( again)

Andrew Brod

November 10, 2009 - 10:11 pm EST

Yes, they should be illegal. But they're not. And wishing won't make it so.

So what do we do? Refuse to play a legal game that others are playing? Or play the game sparingly and strategically?

The former would allow us to feel a righteous glow, though we'd miss out on some of the jobs going to those other places. I'd vote for the latter. Don't grant incentives to any Tom-Dick-and-Harry Inc. Do it only when it makes strategic sense and takes our economy in a direction we want to go. Does Labcorp qualify? Maybe and maybe not. But complaining about "corporate extortion" does no good.

dcolin

November 10, 2009 - 11:42 pm EST

Hogwash.

It's wrong. Period.

dcolin

November 10, 2009 - 11:56 pm EST

"Do it only when it makes strategic sense and takes our economy in a direction we want to go"
Come on.

Who can figure it out.
The consultants.

Strategic sense, economy in a direction,
Real people don't talk that way.

Read On Bullshit

What was it Air Bus
The Brilliant Airport Authority

Mad Dog

November 10, 2009 - 4:47 pm EST

mule4ever,

If you're going to call my analogy idiotic, the least you could do is explain why. My point was that here's somebody else with their hand out. And if the county gives up $373,000 in incentives, I and other county tax payers will have to make up the difference.

Andrew Brod

November 10, 2009 - 10:04 pm EST

I wouldn't call it idiotic, but I'm happy to explain why it's wrong. Or rather, why the Dell incentives didn't turn out as badly as your comment would have us believe:

https://web.uncg.edu/bae/documents/cber/article03JDrwNZWl.pdf

Panacea

November 10, 2009 - 6:11 pm EST

Communities never get their money's worth from incentives. They are corporate welfare. Tell Lab Corps to take a hike.

nclawkid

November 10, 2009 - 8:27 pm EST

If the anticipated jobs pay what Fox8 is reporting, $26,000, then Commissioners should say NO. Incentives should be reserved for companies that improve the average annual wage in the county, not lower it. And these jobs would be more than $13,000 lower than the average Guilford wage.

Burlington can keep these jobs if LabCorp refuses to come without the incentives. It's a stones throw away and I'm sure people in Guilford could still get jobs there if they wanted. But the county certainly shouldn't be paying companies that offer low wages to come here.

Andrew Brod

November 10, 2009 - 10:00 pm EST

I agree for the most part, and your numbers are basically right. But for what it's worth, the 373 jobs are being characterized as entry-level jobs, which suggests that they're jobs in which young people can become skilled and move on to better things. In spite of the wages, it might be a good investment in our work force. And if Labcorp is in an industry we want to attract, then incentives can be a good idea even if the wages aren't as wonderful as we'd like.

Panacea, who's generally a sensible person, says to tell Labcorp to take a hike. That's fine, as long as we're willing to throw the dice and risk them locating elsewhere. Maybe that's a risk we should take. But it's tough thing to turn down jobs in a recession like this.

nclawkid

November 10, 2009 - 10:33 pm EST

You make some good points, Dr. Brod. Hopefully more information about the proposed jobs will be available over the next few days.

Commissioner Alston seemed to express my sentiment about not meeting wage requirements, but that the current economy may be reason enough for an exception. Perhaps if LabCorp fills all these jobs within 12 months, then sure. I just don't want the county to start a trend of offering incentives to companies that offer low wages. Job growth is needed, but so is wage growth.

Fox8 also reported that LabCorp was looking at a site near the airport, which leads me to believe that they'll wind up there whether or not they get the incentives, since promixity to the FedEx hub is more probably the driving factor than incentives money, much like Ameritox's recent announcement.

Andrew Brod

November 11, 2009 - 1:03 am EST

Thanks, nclawkid, but another point. You said that we should let Burlington have these jobs, and I agree with that sentiment as well. I don't think it'd be worth any money at all to induce Labcorp to locate its facilities in Guilford instead of Alamance. We're a regional economy, and 373 jobs over there would be good for us as well. That's why it was so crappy of High Point to spend $600K a few years ago to lure a La-Z-Boy divisional headquarters just a few miles down the road from its previous site in Greensboro.

But my understanding is that the alternative isn't within our region. So it's not Guilford vs. Alamance, it's Guilford vs. somewhere else entirely.

dcolin

November 10, 2009 - 11:45 pm EST

My generation called it blackmail.
Now it's incentives.

Andrew Brod

November 11, 2009 - 12:56 am EST

Yes, yes, we get it, dcolin. The incentives game is unpleasant, ugly, and easy to hate. And there's evidence that it's often played badly. But as we learn more about how badly it's been played, we're also learning how to play it better. As bad as the Dell closing looks, the fact is that the incentives were structured very cleverly, and all the money is getting paid back.

Of course you're wrong when you call it blackmail, as was RRVKEV when he/she called it extortion. Blackmail and extortion are illegal. Fiscal incentives are not. There's no law against requesting incentives nor against granting them. So yes, we can adopt your moralistic approach (it's just wrong and I don't care about the economics) and quit the incentives game. Elect enough sympathetic county commissioners and you'll have your wish. But doing that would most likely come at some cost to our economy. Other counties will continue to play the game, and whether it's fair or not, Guilford will get a negative reputation among site-selection consultants. I like ideals as much as the next guy, but we operate in the real world, and your approach is unrealistic. I don't think indulging your moral outrage is worth the lost jobs.

dcolin

November 11, 2009 - 3:34 pm EST

Bull Shit

""Of course you're wrong when you call it blackmail,"
"The meaning of is" It's blackmail

"Guilford will get a negative reputation among site-selection consultants."

Don't upset the consultants.

Years ago my father was in a union ( I now how people hate them don't get on me )

After a strike people would say they lost more then they will ever recover.

My fathers comment was we did it for the next generation thats what its all about

Little children no longer go in the mines

newtogso

November 11, 2009 - 11:19 am EST

What exactly are the incentives for? Infrastructure? Building improvements? Tax breaks? It wasn't clear from the article. If these incentives are simply enabling them to increase capacity at an existing building or location with existing infrastructure, we should absolutely do this. This is a very, very low amount of incentives when compared with the amount given to PreCor to develop raw land 7 miles away from any population center. I'm in favor of helping companies already located here grow their workforce, just not at the expense of providing new infrastructure for new buildings on raw land.

GBO_Yoda

November 11, 2009 - 9:27 pm EST

Luckily the Dell viper can not bite us any longer , this one can though its here and ready to strike again???? ............... Playing with peoples living in our area is getting old as mold.