Based on a points system driven by corporate facility investment and affiliated job creation, Site Selection presents the Top Deals of 2022 in North America and Top 20 from everywhere else.
High dollars and high job numbers mean a high ranking. Among the trends in evidence is a decided emphasis on semiconductor manufacturing in all parts of the world, with corporate Asia at its heart. Notable exceptions include Intel and Micron.
“The investments we are planning in the U.S. will create up to 40,000 new American jobs, including approximately 5,000 highly paid technical and operational roles at Micron,” said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in August 2022 of the company’s plan to invest $40 billion in leading-edge memory manufacturing through the end of the decade, starting with a $15 billion, 2,000-job expansion in its HQ city of Boise, Idaho — our No. 7 Top Deal. By year-end his company had committed to the No. 1-ranked project on our Top Deals list: a $20 billion, 9,000 job commitment to a new site near Syracuse, New York. It’s expected to catalyze nearly 50,000 jobs in the state over 20 years.
Similar trends and momentum are found in a sector intrinsically tied to semiconductors: the electric mobility industry, comprising EVs, batteries and their entire supply chain. Again, Asian companies predominate (including Vietnam’s VinFast), with GM and Ford the exceptions to the rule.
The only Top Deal in North America that is not associated with EVs, batteries or semiconductors is Denmark-based LEGO Group’s $1 billion, 1,760-job project in Virginia — though it’s only a matter of time until those foot-poking bricks use some combination of AI and chips to self-assemble. Company and community leaders assembled themselves in April for the official groundbreaking in Chesterfield, Virginia, part of the Richmond metro area.
“Children of the greater Richmond area will also have a say in the site’s development,” the company announced. In March, the LEGO Group invited 250 children to share their ideas (using LEGO bricks, of course) for making the land around the factory buildings welcoming to animals, plants, and visitors. Their ideas will inspire the final landscaping design in 2025 for the 13-building campus, where high-tech production equipment will ensure “each brick is made to the accuracy of 1/10th of a hair’s width,” LEGO said. “This precision means that LEGO bricks made today fit perfectly with bricks and products made over the past 60 years.”
Here’s hoping the bricks and products associated with these 40 Top Deals fit perfectly with positive economic development prospects in their chosen regions for decades to come.
(For more insights into many of these projects, search at www.siteselection.com.)
“Our new site will allow us to inspire millions of children across the Americas through play and we can’t wait to get started,” said LEGO Group COO Carsten Rasmussen at the company’s April groundbreaking for a $1 billion plant on a 340-acre site in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
Images courtesy of LEGO Group
Rolex, whose headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, is shown here, will invest $1 billion and create 2,000 jobs at a new factory in Bulle, Switzerland.
Images courtesy of Rolex
