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Companies Tap Oklahoma City Labor

As the investment numbers show, the combination is certainly working, with new facilities popping up across the state. And due to the skilled labor, many companies are touting their Oklahoma operations as their flagship operations. Oklahoma City is a perfect example of this, says Robert Tucker, director of business development with the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, which in return is resulting in numerous expansions. For instance, General Motors' (GM) facility in Oklahoma City has been named the No. 1 tire facility in the country and No. 2 in the world, and it is also currently undergoing a US$700 million expansion.

"And of course, Lucent has won the Malcolm Baldridge Award for quality, and Goodyear has also located its No. 1 plant just southeast of Oklahoma City," Tucker explains. "These companies compare each of their other facilities to their Oklahoma City facilities, because we have a good labor force."

One industry that Oklahoma City seems particularly well suited for is customer service/back-office operations. Among the names locating such operations in Oklahoma's capital city last year were Sprint PCS (1,293 new jobs), Farmers Insurance Group (1,100), AT&T Wireless Services (700), PSINet (410) and West Teleservices Corp. (307). American Online also announced a 200-job expansion at its Oklahoma City customer service center last year.

The area's strongest attraction for such operations is again its work force. "We still have good labor, and the reason for that is we have more than 100,000 college students in the metropolitan area," Tucker says. "So our employment force just regenerates every year."

In other news, automotive manufacturing has found a nice spot to grow in the capital city. GM's investment will retool the Oklahoma City facility for production of sports utility vehicles, representing a new product line for the plant. "And they're going to start the just-in-time delivery," Tucker reports. "So we're getting a lot of suppliers such as Textron Corp., Lear Corp. and Delphi."

Textron Manufacturing, in fact, located a new automobile instrument panel facility in the city, where it will employ some 150 workers.