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Cuomo Celebrates more than 200 New Jobs for Syracuse, Points to 21st Century Jobs

Chris Bolt/WAER News

  Governor Cuomo was in town today to celebrate two local businesses’ plans to create and retain 450 jobs in Downtown Syracuse. The newly restored Hotel Syracuse was the backdrop for his remarks about the economic revitalization happening in Upstate New York State.

“Hotel Syracuse reborn, new advanced manufacturing high-tech companies locating in downtown Syracuse, who ten years ago would have been on the first plane to Austin, Texas or to South Carolina now locating here because they see the economic future.”

The two companies highlighted by Cuomo include Terakeet, a software development and marketing company, and T-C-G Ascencion Gaming, an online marketplace for collectible cards. State Economic Development Commissioner Howard Zemsky says the jobs being created are the sort that will carry Syracuse into the future.

Credit Chris Bolt/WAER News
The lobby of the Hotel Syracuse is still going through construction remodeling and restoration. Governor Cuomo and Economic Development Commissioner Howard Zemsky say reclaiming history for the area's future is essential in economic growth.

  “And those jobs are in digital marketing, in account management, in sales, in data analytics, in software development exactly the kind of jobs that we’re looking for in the 21st century.”

Cuomo emphasized the positive impact these new jobs will have in revitalizing and reinventing the Upstate New York workforce.  

“These are jobs for tomorrow. These are young people jobs, these are high paying jobs, high skilled jobs, and this advanced manufacturing high tech jobs there’s a synergy to them. Once you start to locate a few businesses they tend to spin off even more businesses.”

To offset the 3.9 million dollars of tax credits and grants the companies will receive from the state, Zemsky cites the increase in local personal income.

Credit Chris Bolt/WAER News
Economic Commissioner Zemsky points out how increased payrolls and development of high-paying jobs are good investments for New York.

   “We’re talking about the creation of let’s say 200 jobs let’s just use a round number. 200 jobs it created and let’s say they’re, pick a number, $60,000 a year. That’s 12 million dollars a year in payroll to this area. If you start multiplying by years you pretty quickly get to some very dramatic numbers.”

The state has invested nearly $3 billion into the Central New York region since 2012. With unemployment rates dropping from 8.3 percent in April 2012 to the current 4.7 percent in April 2016.

Chris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards.