Business & Economy

A good, long-term construction job is still hard to come by in North Carolina.   That wasn’t the case just a few years ago when the industry was growing as fast as the state’s population. Today – a lot of the projects in motion are moving ahead with bond money or private funding approved before the economic downturn.  One construction site that has put many people back to work is in Chatham County.

Many companies are still slow to bring back workers during the down economy.   But staffing agencies are busier than ever.

One of the largest staffing agencies in the country is Kelly Services.   And today they’re hosting a job fair at the McKimmon Center at N-C State.

Andrew Crawford is the North Carolina territory Vice President for Kelly Services.  He says over the last couple of years they didn’t need to have many job fairs because of the high number of job candidates.

Local officials in Greensboro are considering more than a million dollars in incentives for Honda Aircraft to build a service and support center. Honda's offer asks for about $775,000 from Guilford County and $520,000 more from the city of Greensboro. The company opened a headquarters building at Piedmont Triad International Airport four years ago. That facility has about 600 workers. Honda tells county commissioners the expansion would add more than 400 jobs over the next five years. Commissioner Kirk Perkins supports the incentives. 

A Durham company is planning to build a plant in Henderson that will produce one-of-a-kind solar modules. 

Thousands of jobs are on the chopping block at Cisco Systems.  But analysts wonder if that’s enough to turn the company around.   Inge reports.

The 6,500 lay-offs at Cisco are no surprise.

Emily Chang - Bloomberg TV:  "Reports of impending layoffs have been circulating for weeks at the networking giant looks for ways to slash a billion dollars."

Food truck operators who hope to sell their creations in downtown Raleigh will soon know their fate. The City Council is set to vote today on a set of restrictions that will let them operate in the capital city. The public rift between food truck operators and bricks and mortar restaurant owners has been going on for more than a year. Some restaurant owners see food trucks as unfair competition. They say they pay high rents and property taxes, and fear that food trucks will set up outside their doors and siphon off customers.  Mike Stenke owns the Klausie's Pizza truck.