GM bringing new jobs to Austin

The car industry is coming to Austin. General Motors announces it will open a new IT Innovation center in the Capitol City and bringing 500 new jobs.

The industry giant says this is one of four innovation centers they will be opening throughout the U.S. GM will be hiring software developers, project managers, business analysts and other IT Professionals. The centers, a new venture for GM, are intended to develop new products and services for vehicles.

The Austin Chamber of Commerce worked with GM in the past few months to bring them to Austin, a part of that process was also site selection. GM will not confirm a specific location but the Chamber says GM was looking at the TechRidge building off Parmer Lane in north east Austin. It was formerly used by Dell. The city says salaries for the proposed jobs are upwards of $60,000.

"Number one is talent, specifically for GM they were looking at a location that would draw on the talent base, a lot of software engineers, young, enthusiastic workers," said Dave Porter with the Austin Chamber of Commerce.

"When a large company starts a presence in the city of Austin, that attracts other companies that surround them that do business, support businesses and the like," said Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

"By having a company like General Motors a marquee company is nothing but a positive thing for the city of Austin," he said.

The city says GM initially was interested in the incentives the city offers to attract businesses to Austin but GM chose to do this one on their own.

So far no timeline has been announced on when the center would open.

Fox7 Austin
Posted: Sep 07, 2012 11:36 AM EDT
Updated: Sep 07, 2012 7:56 PM EDT
Read more: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/19483881/gm-bringing-new-jobs-to-austin...
Read more: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/19483881/gm-bringing-new-jobs-to-austin...