Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

NKY Optimistic About Future Of Economic Development In The Region

Gravity Diagnostics
This is an example of the magnitude of supplies Gravity Diagnostics needs as it prepares to process thousands of COVID-19 tests. This company is an example of new business for NKY.

It wasn't aerospace manufacturing that provided the boost in jobs and economic development this year for Northern Kentucky. It was instead health care, labs, clinical technology and food and flavor manufacturing. Tri-Ed says the future looks even brighter.

https://vimeo.com/491298828" target="_blank">During a video callTuesday to Northern Kentucky Chamber members, Northern Kentucky Tri-Ed's CEO Lee Crume offered an optimistic picture of job creation and industrial development for 2020.

"In a year when people are talking about, 'The office is dead and people will never go back to the office' - we saw a large chunk of projects in both the headquarters and the technology space, technology being office space," Crume says.  "We really think that speaks to what our community will be able to do moving out of this."

Crume reported the creation of 1,563 new jobs in 2020:

  • 597 advanced manufacturing jobs
  • 466 headquarters and office jobs
  • 317 distribution and logistics jobs
  • 183 technology jobs

The average salary for jobs at companies like Best Sanitizers, Mazak, Gentis Solutions, Gravity Diagnostics and others is $72,500. WVXU reported on Gravity Diagnostics in April.

Crume says the projection is the Greater Cincinnati real estate industry market will grow by 25 million-square feet in the next five years. "Sixty-seven percent of that growth will be in Northern Kentucky and the lion's share of that growth will occur in what's called the airport submarket right around CVG."

Earlier this year FEAM Aero built a huge hangar at CVG to hold many of the 747 series, as WVXU reported.

Tri-Ed says it is allowing data to help it make good decisions in Northern Kentucky. Crume is confident other industries which have been slow during the pandemic will come back.

Ann Thompson has decades of journalism experience in the Greater Cincinnati market and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting.