GO-Biz Director Kish Rajan today announced that California has received Area Development Magazine’s ‘Silver Shovel Award’ for excellence in job creation, for the first time since the award was created in 2006. The award is based on projects submitted by GO-Biz that demonstrate California’s growing ability to create high-value jobs and ranks California among the top states in the nation for job creation.
“This award demonstrates California’s on-going ability to create high quality jobs in a wide array of industries across the state,” said GO-Biz Director Kish Rajan. “Area Development bases their ranking on actual job creation so it’s not surprising that when a state ranking is based on real results, California stands out as a leader.”
As part of the criteria for the award, participating states must submit information about their top ten job creation and investment projects, which are compared to projects in other states with comparable populations based on the number of high-value added jobs per capita, amount of investment, number of new facilities, and industry diversity.
“The states receiving 2013 Shovel Awards deserve special recognition for their efforts to attract new businesses and to help their existing corporate citizens to expand their businesses,” said Geraldine Gambale, editor of Area Development. “They have managed to thrive and emerge from the recession as economic leaders.”
Area Development recognized the Samsung Semiconductor expansion in San Jose as the second most significant manufacturing project in the nation. California projects submitted for the award spanned the entire state and included such industry leaders as Sutter Health (Roseville), Amazon (San Bernardino and Patterson) Caterpillar (Kern City) and more. The California entries were all signature GO-Biz projects that required significant staff time and resources to complete.
“These projects are prime examples of public private partnerships between GO-Biz, our regional partners and the private sector to bring new jobs to California,” said Deputy Director for Business Investment Services, Leslie McBride. “GO-Biz project specialists worked countless hours to incentivize these companies to either relocate into California or expand within our borders.”
The Award will be presented to GO-Biz Director Rajan and will be on display at their offices in Sacramento. A report on the 2013 Shovel Award winners will be published in the Spring 2013 issue of Area Development and are posted online at www.areadevelopment.com/awards. View this GO-Biz Press Release online HERE.
About GO-Biz
The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) serves as California’s single point of contact for economic development and job creation efforts. GO-Biz offers a range of services to business owners including: attraction, retention and expansion services, site selection, permit streamlining, clearing of regulatory hurdles, small business assistance, international trade development, assistance with state government, and much more. For more information visit: www.business.ca.gov.
CONTACT: Riley Robbins
(916) 322-0671