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AreaDevelopment Online: New Bern, North Carolina’s Hatteras Yachts has plans to invest some $4.7 million in growth while creating 350 jobs in the next five years.  To do so, parent company Brunswick Corporation will move its recent West coast acquisition, Cabo Yachts, east, installing it with Hatteras under the same roof where both companies will continue production of luxury sportfishing and motoryacht vessels.

“For the past 18 months, we have been investing heavily in new products and modernizing our factory here, and now, with help from North Carolina, we will be able to fully leverage these investments”, said Hatteras CEO, James Meyer of the consolidation.

The move will significantly add to the 279 already employed at the New Bern facility.

The company will invest $3.7 million for the new center, which will be located in Research Triangle Park in the Raleigh-Durham area. IBM is already one of the largest employers in the area, according to Triangle Business Journal, with 10,000 employees currently at RTP.

“IBM has been a major employer in North Carolina providing thousands of skilled jobs for more than 30 years,” Gov. Beverly Perdue said in a news release. “We value this company’s ongoing commitment to North Carolina and Research Triangle Park.”

IBM LBPS offers a broad range of lender-based technology and business process solutions for its clients, according to the governor’s office.

Compensation will vary by jobs, but the average pay for the new positions will be about $50,000 a year, not including benefits.

A total of 22 fleet-maintenance workers are slated to lose their jobs at Butler America on Aug. 29. However, it’s possible the affected workers could land at Butler’s competitor that won the AT&T contract, the company said.

According to the Business Journal, positions to be cut include mechanics, technicians and service coordinators.

Butler America advises large and mid-tier global corporations on global engineering, advanced IT and next generation telecom services.

Magna will receive $1.1 million in state tax breaks for the expansion. However, as part of the deal, state officials are requiring Magna to pay an average salary of at least $30,017 plus health care and other benefits. The three plants are located in Rowan, Catawba and Caldwell counties. Rowan ($35,048) and Catawba ($32,500) have slightly higher average annual salaries that the agreement guarantees, while Caldwell comes in just below at $28,340.

The unemployment rates in all three counties remains above the statewide average, the Associated Press reports.

“At $30,000 an average job, I think that’s something many, many, many people would be happy to have,” said Robert Van Geons, executive director of RowanWorks, the county’s economic development agency. “That’s a very competitive wage, and they’re not going to have any problem finding hundreds and hundreds of applications for that.”

Magna International operates 240 manufacturing plants in 25 countries.

A spokesman for Pfizer said the layoffs are part of 170 job cuts the company announced last November, which came just prior to its purchase of pharmaceutical rival Wyeth. According to the company’s Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice filed with the state, Pfizer’s first set of layoffs will be small, but the cuts will increase as the facility’s closure nears.

The layoffs are the direct result of a restructuring the company is undergoing following its purchase of Wyeth.  Affected employees will receive severance packages, according to local reports.

Store manager Inez Dohrman told the paper the hires will eventually equate to 50 to 55 permanent jobs, which will include both full- and part time positions.

According to the report, there were 149 names on the sign-in sheet by 1 p.m. when the Employment Security Commission began handing out applications shortly after 9 a.m. People filled chairs and benches and sat on the floor filling out forms.

“We are looking for people who will take ownership of a job,” Dohrman said. “I want to develop people who will move forward with the company — the people we need and people who need us.”

United Furniture Industries plans to invest $3.3 million for a new facility in Davidson County, North Carolina that will bring 150 new jobs to the area over the next three years.

Gov. Bev Perdue announced the move, which was made possible in part by a $125,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund, according to a press release.

“Furniture manufacturing is a North Carolina heritage industry, which continues to evolve and adapt to meet the challenges of a global marketplace,” said Gov. Perdue. “Our top business climate, skilled workforce and superb quality of life are proving attractive to companies looking for the perfect location to grow their operations.”

United Furniture Industries is a national manufacturer of residential upholstered furniture and is headquartered in Okolona, Miss. The company produces affordable living room furniture, including sofas, chairs, recliners, sleepers and other items.  The company currently has five locations, including three in Mississippi and two in North Carolina.

At its new facility in Lexington, United Furniture plans to assemble frame materials, foam and upholstered material from outside vendors into finished furniture products.

While salaries will vary by job function, the new positions will pay an average annual wage of $29,032, not including benefits, which is comparable to the Davidson County average annual wage of $29,640.

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s office issued a statement that Plastek Industries was awarded $2 million in state incentives for the jobs plan. The company will invest $19 million in a new facility in Richmond County, which would be Plastek’s first in the state.

According to the Raleigh/Durham Business Journal, the average salary for the new jobs would be $32,800, which the report notes is well above the county average of $26,600.

The governor’s statement said Plastik Industries has more than 2,000 workers in the U.S. and internationally. The company is described as a family-run business founded in 1956 in Erie, Pa.

According to the Charlotte Business Journal, Connextions is taking the action because it lost a contract with Sprint Nextel Corp., which is moving its customer-service operations to India.

Connextions has about 800 workers at its Concord call center. Scott Kabel, the company’s vice president of operations, told the journal that some of those affected would be offered severance packages.

In addition to the North Carolina facility, Connextions also operates call centers in Florida and Indiana.

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s office said Clariant, which won $55,000 in state incentives, will spend $2.5 million on a project that will relocate customer service and business support operations from Rhode Island to the company’s existing facility in Charlotte.

According to the Charlotte Business Journal, salaries for the jobs will average $85,796, well above the average annual wage in the county of $48,776. Clariant, which is based in Switzerland, has five facilities in North Carolina and employs nearly 400 people.