A revised version of Travis County’s [Texas] proposed incentive package to Apple sets an US$35,000 minimum salary for the lowest-paid of Apple’s new Austin workers as part of a deal to bring 3,665 jobs to a planned North Austin campus, reports the “American-Statesman” (http://macte.ch/hgZhL).
The change is among “a few substantive tweaks and other more superficial changes” made to the county’s 15-year, $5.4 million to $6.4 million tax rebate offer, the article adds. The county would require an average salary of $35,000 for the bottom 10% of Apple-employed workers and $11 per hour for contractors, who will account for up to 25% of their new workers.
The Commissioners Court could vote to give final approval to the deal at today’s meeting, notes the “American-Statesman.” Commissioners were scheduled to vote on it last week but bounced the deal back to county staffers after about an hour of testimony from Bill Aleshire and Ed Wendler, picking at what they called weak points of the contract.
In March Gov. Rick Perry today announced that Apple will expand its presence in Texas with an $304 million investment in a new campus in Austin that will create more than 3,600 new jobs. The new campus will more than double the size of Apple’s workforce in Texas over the next decade, supporting the company’s growing operations in the Americas with expanded customer support, sales and accounting functions for the region. In exchange for Apple’s commitment to create these new jobs in Texas, the state has offered Apple an investment of $21 million over ten years through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF).
