NC saw most ever jobs promises in 2025, led by jet maker and HQ headlines
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- NC secured commitments for over 33,000 jobs in 2025, led by JetZero.
- State projects total $23.1B in promised investment, but past targets often fail.
- Officials stress incentives pay out only if companies meet hiring and investment goals.
Propelled by JetZero’s historic hiring promise in the Piedmont, North Carolina has secured a record number of jobs commitments in 2025. Companies have pledged to create more than 33,000 jobs statewide, the most ever during a calendar year, with a few weeks left for the total to rise.
“Other states want what we have,” Gov. Josh Stein said during a press conference Wednesday in Raleigh to highlight North Carolina business recruitment over the past 11 months. “We’ve got to keep expanding opportunity. We’ve got to spread it to every corner of the state.”
In July, North Carolina reclaimed the No. 1 spot in CNBC’s esteemed “Top States for Business” rankings, not long after the aviation startup JetZero announced it would build a 14,500-worker factory at the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro. It is the largest jobs project in recent state history.
Other four-digit hiring projects in 2025 include Scout Motors (1,200 jobs), the rare earth magnet startup Vulcan Elements (1,000 jobs), and the insurance provider Aspida (1,000 jobs). Pharmaceutical manufacturing continued to deliver potential jobs for North Carolina, with Genentech vowing to build a weight-loss drug plant in Holly Springs and Novartis looking to create 700 jobs across three Triangle locations.
Office projects rebounded this year following a pandemic downturn, noted Christopher Chung of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, who joined Stein at Wednesday’s press conference along with N.C. Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley. As an example, Chung listed the electric car manufacturer Scout Motors’ plans to establish its headquarters in Charlotte. Citigroup also announced it would hire more than 500 workers at an office in the Queen City.
State Republicans and Democrats have shown consistent bipartisan alignment on major economic projects, a dynamic that hasn’t extended to other political areas.
“Companies that we work with often remark upon the high level of collaboration they experience when working with the state of North Carolina at every level,” Lilley said. “Companies don’t see this kind of collaboration in every state, and it’s a vital reason for our success.”
NC jobs headlines come with big caveat
In total, 2025’s jobs commitments would bring $23.1 billion in investment if they come to fruition. Historically, most major hiring projects North Carolina has backed with economic incentives never reach their hiring targets — with many never creating any jobs.
One need not look farther than last year’s biggest jobs headline, a promised 1,000-worker factory in Edgecombe County from the sodium-ion battery maker Natron Energy. Financial shortfalls caused Natron to go out of business this September.
Since 2007, state data shows North Carolina has awarded more than $5 billion in economic incentives through its job development investment grant program, yet has only disbursed around $227.3 million. While many JDIG projects remain active, current disbursements represent less than 5% of the initial awarded amounts.
State leaders emphasize companies only benefit from North Carolina economic incentives after they reach hiring and investment targets detailed in their JDIGs. The North Carolina General Assembly has, in recent years, allocated more upfront dollars to improve project sites — a decision the state frames as an investment in the land, not companies.
Stein compared his administration’s business recruitment philosophy to basketball, where misses are inevitable. “At the end of the day, if a deal doesn’t come through, the only cost is the opportunity cost,” he said. “We could have been working with another company and maybe putting that site up for another company, and that is something we think about. But you don’t score if you don’t shoot. And so, we shoot, and we just try to make as many of those shots as we can.”
Data center debates
One sector North Carolina has not backed with state incentives thus far is data centers, warehouse-like facilities that store servers and have received a boon of investment amid increases in artificial intelligence and cloud computing. This fall, Amazon broke ground on a $10 billion data center project in rural Richmond County while developers and local residents have clashed over data centers across the state.
“Thus far, the answer on data centers in North Carolina has really been left to a local decision,” Lilley said Wednesday. “And a decision about whether or not power is available.”
This week, Stein backed fellow Democrat Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s decision to review a proposed Duke Energy rate hike. At Wednesday’s conference, Stein raised a possible link between data centers and energy bills, saying the facilities “suck up an incredible amount of energy.”
“(Are data centers) the right way that we want to deploy a limited resource?” he said. “We do not have infinite energy.”
Amazon has declined to share how much energy its Richmond County data center is projected to use, while developers hoping to build facilities in Wake and Edgecombe counties have provided details on megawatt usage.
This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 1:23 PM with the headline "NC saw most ever jobs promises in 2025, led by jet maker and HQ headlines."
