Goodyear has been awarded a Job Maintenance and Capital Development Fund (JMAC) grant by North Carolina authorities to support the upgrade and addition of manufacturing equipment at its Fayetteville tyre plant.
As a result of the modernisation project, Goodyear, one of Cumberland County’s largest private employers, will maintain its role in the company’s operations and 2,000 North Carolina jobs will be protected.
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The North Carolina Economic Investment Committee (EIC) approved the JMAC grant, which could see Goodyear receiving up to US$3m a year during the life of the JMAC’s finance term, which runs for ten years.
Through the conditions of the grant, the company must also make at least US$180m in capital improvements at the site in addition to retaining jobs at the plant.
The Goodyear Fayetteville plant is around 50 years old. The modernisation project will enable the company to manufacture high-value-added tyres, generally defined as those 17 inches in diameter and larger.
NC Commerce calculates the average annual wages associated with this project as US$68,797; the average wage in Cumberland County is US$36,425.
The JMAC Fund is a discretionary incentive programme providing sustained annual grants to businesses, which meet the requirements of a major employer or a large manufacturer.
The JMAC Fund is intended to encourage retention of significant numbers of high-paying, high-quality jobs and large-scale capital investment, which will modernise processes and provide more globally competitive projects.
In addition, the JMAC programme specifies the business must either be in a Tier 1 County with at least 320 full-time employees or be in a Tier 2 County with a population of less than 60,000 and employ at least 800 full-time employees.
Cumberland ranks as a Tier 1 County through the State’s County distress tier system.
