\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOfficials with the city, Williamson County and state discussed current economic development trends and the shift toward advanced manufacturing at the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce Cornerstone Luncheon on June 25.<\/p>\n
The discussion<\/p>\n
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Williamson County and the city of Georgetown have experienced a market shift from office jobs to advanced manufacturing positions amid an extended period of population growth, Williamson County Economic Development Coordinator Dave Porter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s not a market more on fire right now in terms of economic development than Georgetown and Williamson County,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This change is largely driven by corporations such as Samsung<\/a> Electronics and Tesla, which have made Williamson County a home base for their manufacturing operations. Other large projects, including Pegatron<\/a> and Compal<\/a>, are in the works, as well.<\/p>\n Williamson County\u2019s population grew from roughly 692,000 at the end of 2022 to nearly 750,000 today, and is projected to reach between 1 million and 1.1 million residents within the next 10 years, Porter said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur demographics in Williamson County are perfect for advanced manufacturing,\u201d said Cameron Goodman, director of economic development for Georgetown. \u201cAdvanced manufacturing wants highly skilled labor, highly educated labor and Williamson County meets both of those qualifications.\u201d<\/p>\n Both area cities and the county have prioritized creating local job opportunities when developing economic incentive agreements with companies, Porter said. For companies based outside the United States, 90% of their workforces come from Williamson County, he said.<\/p>\n Something to note<\/p>\n Local school districts, including Georgetown ISD, and area colleges, also provide workforce development opportunities, the leaders said. Additionally, they encourage businesses to offer internship programs.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things the county requires for an incentive is that the company offer internships or apprenticeships\u2014up to 10 positions a year\u2014for high school students,\u201d Porter said. \u201cWe want to continue to help educate the students on the future of manufacturing.\u201d<\/p>\n One more thing<\/p>\n In addition to bringing new companies to the area, officials highlighted the career paths that already exist locally.<\/p>\n Porter said there are over 15,000 businesses in Williamson County, and 75%-80% of job opportunities come from existing businesses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s just a great place where we don’t want to change it,\u201d Goodman said. \u201cWe want to make it the best version of itself.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials with the city, Williamson County and state discussed current economic development trends and the shift toward advanced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24985,132,134,133,4196,437,12268,2538,290],"class_list":["post-351740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-advanced-manufacturing","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-chamber-of-commerce","tag-economic-development","tag-georgetown","tag-williamson-county","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}