City Leaders Seek Energy Jobs

With unemployment hovering near 12 percent in the Charlotte area, city leaders are talking about ways to create new jobs.

At the center of many of those discussions is the word 'energy.'

Banking may be the biggest generator of wealth and high-paying jobs in Charlotte, but there's another industry being courted by Charlotte's biggest business boosters.

“What we're really competing for, no one in the United States, no region, has emerged as the capital for alternative renewable energy sources,” Bob Morgan, from the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, said.

Morgan leads a team that’s pushing to brand Charlotte as an energy hub.

In important ways, it already is. At a recent economic forum, Duke CEO Jim Rogers said that Duke continues to create energy jobs, along with 50 other energy-related companies that are in Charlotte because of Duke’s headquarters.

Rogers said the jobs are high-paying ones, related to building coal plants, gas plants and nuclear plants.

There is also potential for job growth in companies that focus on new, emerging technologies.

Celgard is one such company. Its factory is located in Charlotte and makes a film used in batteries for cell phones, laptops and home drills.

“I think Charlotte can certainly be one of the hotspots in the United States for this new and emerging technology,” Mitch Pulwer, general manager of Celgard, said.

The federal government is betting $49 million that Pulwer and his team at Celgard can make that happen by using stimulus money to double the company’s workforce. The additional products are meant to supply other companies developing batteries for fully electric cars.

“If they've been in accounting, we may have an accounting job,” Pulwer said. “But it's more likely that we're going to have an engineering or a manufacturing job.”

Creating jobs at one company, though, is a long way from making Charlotte a hub for alternative energy.

The city does have one big competitive advantage. It sits in the center of a belt of engineering universities, including Virginia Tech, NC State, UNC Charlotte, Clemson and Georgia Tech.

Morgan said there are schools nearby that provide a ready workforce is already paying dividends.

“We're able to leverage that to help attract companies like Toshiba and Siemens and The Shaw Group,” he said.

Toshiba is hiring 200 engineers with an average salary of $122,000.

Energy could help power recovery in a city with a double-digit unemployment rate.

The energy sector currently supplies the third-highest number of jobs to the Charlotte region – 20,000 according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Banking is the next highest, supplying 55,000 jobs. Health care is the number one provider of jobs with 78,000 workers.