North Carolina ranks as the No. 3 state for business for the second straight year in Chief Executive magazine’s 2017 Best & Worst States for Business survey.

Since the official launch date of the NCMI initiative in April 2015, over 100 individuals have had their lives and their families’ lives transformed.  On average, 88% of graduates have full-time employment within 1 to 2 months of graduation, with most of them at local employers who have partnered with the Institute.

Add another reason why an expanding or relocating company will pick or reject a community for its jobs and investment project: social capital or social trust.

The North Carolina Research Campus and the scientists at its eight university research centers will soon have a tool to target their business development efforts to companies in need of nutrition research. The program is coming thanks to a Catawba College Information Systems class that is creating a searchable database.

Feb. 28, 2017 – CONCORD, NC – Alevo’s plans to add additional production lines and equipment at its battery manufacturing facility in Concord will create just over 200 jobs and invest $251.5 million into the local economy.

Corning Incorporated and its subsidiary, Corning Optical Communications LLC, announced today it will invest $109 million to expand its existing optical fiber manufacturing facility in Midland, creating 200 jobs over the next two years.

It should be no surprise that in an area with fast-moving cars, its people move quickly as well. In June 2015, a Concord City Council ordinance amendment opened the frontier for breweries. Just 16 months later, Concord’s third brewery: Twenty-Six Acres. Born of and run by Cabarrus natives — Joel Padgett (operations manager), Eric Troutman (brewer) and Wes Ports (business partner) — it opened to the public on Oct. 15, 2016.

More than 50 employers are expected at the Rowan-Cabarrus Community Job Fair to be held in about two weeks.