Incentives often don't always mean job creation, new state report shows

Apple, Wolfspeed, and Vinfast are all corporations that have drawn a lot of attention as they want to create a major presence in North Carolina. To get the company’s here, the state has awarded them grants, given the corporations incentives to open these facilities and hire people from our area as well as bring in people from other places.

But data released this month from the Department of Commerce shows that few companies that have been given these grants follow through on their commitments.

The report shows that about 43 percent of the companies that have been awarded Job Development Investment Grants either terminated their agreements or withdrew from them before the end of their term.

In total, since 2003, the state has awarded more than $4.6 billion dollars to 384 companies. As of now, 183 are active while a few dozen have closed out.

As for the others, they either withdrew from the program or failed to meet their markers.

In some cases though, it came at the expense of the taxpayers as more than $69 million was distributed to companies before their agreements were terminated.

In total, these grants were supposed to create or retain positions for about 185,000 people. In reality, the report shows about a third of those positions were never filled.