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Mississippi

Mississippi's work force speaks for itself. With a 1.3 million-strong civilian labor force, Mississippi ranks high in work ethic with a low 3 percent average absenteeism rate and a 5 percent turnover rate. But like much of the Southeast, labor continues to grow tighter, with state unemployment rates falling below the national average.

Despite this fact, the state continues to do all it can to ensure qualified workers for its new and expanding companies. For example, Mississippi has a statewide job bank where businesses can seek qualified workers via a computerized system, which currently lists more than 1 million positions. And the Mississippi Dept. of Economic and Community Development offers the Resume Cross-Match Service Program to assist employers seeking to fill technical and professional positions. The Resume Cross-Match program is a database of resumes for job-ready applicants, which the department is able to search by skills, credentials and career objectives. The department sorts through the database and sends the employers the qualified resumes for their positions.

Mississippi's work-force training program provides custom-designed training for pre-employment and post-employment, and it offers upgrading /retraining services. Training can be conducted at the plant site, at the community/junior college campus or in a mobile unit or other designated facility. And to make training in Mississippi a little more appealing, tax credits are available for up to 25 percent of the businesses' qualified training expenses if the training programs are purchased from the local community college and certified by the Mississippi Dept. of Education.

Mississippi's work-force training programs and its labor force have won it a name as a good place to do business. Bowling Green, Ky.-based Holley Performance Products, in fact, cited the skilled labor force as key to its newest location in Aberdeen, Miss.

"Not often can you find a highly trained work force and a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in a state, county and city so willing to promote economic and community growth," says Jeff King, president and CEO of Holley Performance. "With this facility we can begin the consolidation of our international exhaust manufacturing facilities and increase our current production capacity."

Holley Performance is consolidating five plants in the United States, Mexico and Canada to the new plant in Aberdeen. The company plans to create 150 new jobs by year's end and a total of 500 jobs within the next couple of years.

Training was also part of Tecumseh Products' decision to add 700 jobs to its operations in Lee and Alcorn counties. The Michigan-based manufacturer of air conditioner and refrigeration compressors, will invest more than $16 million to expand its Mississippi operations, increasing its employment to around 2,000 workers. Todd Herrick, Tecumseh president and CEO, says the decision to expand in Mississippi came after a detailed analysis of its production facilities in India, Brazil and France and was based on several factors, including training and labor availability. The Itawamba Community College (Lee County) and Northeast Mississippi Community College (Alcorn County) will provide training for the operations.

"This was a situation where we all came together, discussed the options and were able to accommodate each other's needs," says J.C. Burns, executive director of the Mississippi Dept. of Economic and Community Development.