There's no question that northern Nevada is growing, and on Thursday community leaders came together at the ALLIANCE business expo to highlight ways the Silver State can continue to succeed.
“So we lost those 175,000 jobs during the recession, in the past seven years we've replaced those with 250,000 jobs,” said Governor Brian Sandoval. “Today we are number one in the country in job growth.”
Organizations like EDAWN, the RSCVA and the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce recognized the governor for his ongoing work to cut down unemployment rates and bring new jobs to northern Nevada.
In 2017 alone, nearly 30 new businesses came to the region, creating an additional 3,300 jobs.
EDAWN CEO Mike Kazmierski says in 2018, the goal is to attract more corporate headquarters and tech jobs, including work that offers higher wages to its employees.
“Many of the companies have said enough in California and we want to be one of those options for them as they look to relocate,” said Kazmierski.
Community concerns were also addressed at the expo, with the number one challenge being the region's affordable housing shortage.
“If you've got to get some of your employees to relocate, they look at this housing and go forget it, it's not going to happen so it has cost us some projects already,” said Kazmierski.
All in all, people are still moving to the state. In fact RSCVA CEO Phil DeLone says by 2025 the region's population could grow from 615,000 people to 725,000.
“I think people have not come to Reno and Sparks and north Lake Tahoe in the last few years, now they're beginning to rediscover it,” said DeLone.
DeLone also said at the expo that RSCVA has teams talking about northern Nevada’s successes outside of the United States. The organization has sales and marketing offices in 5 Chinese cities.
