Gov. Pat McCrory was in Charlotte Friday to formally announce MetLife will bring more than 1,300 jobs to the city.

The governor announced Thursday that the insurance company would bring 2,600 jobs to North Carolina, divided between Charlotte and Cary.

Charlotte chamber officials said Charlotte is on record pace with more than 3,200 jobs announced since the beginning of 2013.

"North Carolina is on the comeback. It's still attractive to so many great national companies," McCrory said to a crowd at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. "They made a difficult choice and let me tell you, there was a lot of competition."

Channel 9 tried to speak with McCrory after the announcement, but he immediately left.

MetLife representatives confirmed the average salary for Charlotte employees will be about $58,350.

The jobs MetLife will create in Charlotte are in areas such as customer support, marketing, sales, and product management.

The first hire is expected to be about 570 employees, with the company eventually hiring more than 1,300 jobs by 2015.

Mayor Anthony Foxx said he's thrilled Charlotte is gaining back some of the financial jobs it lost in the recession.

"This is another big, big, big shot in the arm of the financial services sector and to the city of Charlotte and North Carolina," Foxx said.

Charlotte awarded $1.09 million and Mecklenburg County awarded $1.9 million in grants. They boil down to property tax rebates for MetLife over several years and are also dependent on the company having a certain number of employees at certain salaries. The state awarded incentives of more than $94 million.

State Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker said she was told Charlotte was competing directly with St. Louis for the jobs.

Channel 9 asked her how many jobs will be relocated and how many will be local hires. Decker said in her experience, relocations are usually 30 percent of the jobs announced and she expects the majority to be local hires in Charlotte.

"One of the things that made North Carolina very attractive is an available, qualified, educated workforce," Decker said, "so most of these jobs will go to North Carolinians."

The company did not release any specific dates on when the hiring would occur or the dates of any job fairs.