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MetLife’s plans to bring 2,600 jobs to North Carolina is “credit positive” news for the city of Charlotte and town of Cary, Moody’s Investors Service said Thursday.
Each week, Moody’s releases a Weekly Credit Outlook report in which the ratings agency labels as either “credit positive” or “credit negative” major corporate announcements or political developments that could affect the credit ratings of states and municipalities.
But the MetLife news won’t change Moody’s ratings for North Carolina, Mecklenburg and Wake counties or Charlotte and Cary, all of which are already Aaa, the agency’s highest rating, Moody’s spokesman David Jacobson said Friday.
MetLife’s plans were unveiled this month, in what Gov. Pat McCrory has called the largest jobs announcement in North Carolina’s history. The company plans to split the jobs evenly between Charlotte and Cary.
“The news is credit positive as the 2,600 relatively high-paying jobs will reduce the local unemployment rates by approximately 0.6 percent,” Moody’s said in the report.
The report also said that Moody’s expects the Charlotte region to “outperform the U.S. over the next three years as the region’s above-average population growth fuels expansion of the health care, consumer and housing sectors.”
