Creating Jobs

• Share

(2 of 2)

Some states are creating service jobs by attracting high-tech firms to dilapidated areas. In New Haven, an 80-acre science park is being built near Yale University as part of a larger enterprise zone. A nonprofit, joint effort by Yale, the Olin Corp. and the city, this park offers new companies special access to the university's research and teaching facilities, as well as generous tax abatements. More than a dozen companies have expressed an interest in moving in. Park officials are now busy helping the maintenance, security, restaurant and other support businesses in the zone gear up for their new customers. They expect this district to blossom with up to 300 nonprofessional jobs in the next year, 1,000 by 1988.

In states with no enterprise-zone legislation, some cities are devising their own zones. San Jose, Calif., for instance, has waived taxes and fees that can amount to 4.7% of building costs in order to spur new business and residential construction in a 5-sq.-mi. "central incentive zone" downtown. One result: the Sainte Claire Hilton, product of a $6.5 million renovation, which employs 150 people.

Critics fear that instead of creating new jobs, these zones will simply draw business away from other areas. But in some instances they have attracted companies that could not otherwise have afforded to expand. More important, many workers finding jobs in enterprise zones were formerly dependent on public assistance. Sums up City Venture President George Bardos: "The basic goal is to address unemployment where it is worst."