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SpaceX Set To Create 300 New US Jobs and Expand Facilities

Posted by timothy on from the even-leases-are-bigger-in-texas dept.

littlesparkvt writes The SpaceX manufacturing plant in McGregor, TX is set to spend $46 million on an expansion that would create 300 full-time jobs. SpaceX is proposing to invest $46.3 million in the site during the next five years. They will spend $32.4 million in real property improvements and $13.9 million in personal property improvements.

7 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. So... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is this the local-chamber-of-commerce estimate for 'job creation', to be totted out when whoring for subsidies, or the actually shows up in the 'help wanted' section number?

    I have nothing against SpaceX in particular; but it is not exactly a secret that "Will create(or, sometimes, if you are a horrible human being 'grow') eleventy-zillion jobs!!!" is the earliest and most ubiquitous claim for any and all plans looking for tax breaks and zoning variances. Hell, when assorted professional sports teams are demanding that taxpayers build their stadiums because, um, reasons, they invariably manage to produce numbers alleging that a few janitorial and hot-dog seller positions will somehow be god's gift to the local economy, and totally worth the several hundred million dollars.

    1. Re:So... by Teancum · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not too many. You have to be a U.S. Citizen to work for SpaceX due to ITAR restrictions, and pass a criminal background check too. It is possible to get hired if you aren't a U.S. Citizen, but that amounts to being something like a security clearance for classified work (which also must happen for much of what SpaceX does). It is a separate part of the Department of State that must issue the authorization for a non-citizen to work.

      It seems like I heard a SpaceX employee say that they didn't know of any H1-B visa holders that worked for their company... but I could be mistaken. They certainly aren't milking the visa system to get cheap workers. It is one of the restrictions when you make something that can be used with thermonuclear weapons that gets a whole lot more attention in terms of immigration and work status rules.

  2. Re:nonsense, only the gov't can create jobs. by SpankiMonki · · Score: 4, Funny

    $34M is puny even by Texas standards. Here in N.Y. that can't even buy an election.

    I've got news for you, sonny...*New York* is puny by our standards. Yee Haw!!! [gunshots]

  3. Re:TheErm did you miss ty are also hiring a Farmer by Provocateur · · Score: 3, Funny

    Did you read it as Space sex instead of Space X, that might explain the confusion, in your case

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  4. Re:They are also hiring a Farmer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is actually part of the lease they signed - the land must be farmed, not allowed to "just rot unused". McGregor county required it to be farmed.

    Funnily the farmer they are seeking is required to be very flexible, effectively doing all the farming at night... because rocket testing comes first and farming work on those fields SpaceX now leases can only be done when no rocket testing is ongoing :)

  5. Re:They are also hiring a Farmer by Teancum · · Score: 4, Informative

    SpaceX even tried to hire the previous lease holders to farm that land. The problem was that the additional terms of the contract (like you said.... farming at night and working around test schedules) were something those farmers didn't agree to doing. They also needed to go through a criminal background check and verify that they haven't been involved with international arms trades due to requirements of the ITAR laws and the Department of Defense contracts that SpaceX is signing.

    All told, bringing the position in-house sounds like a better way to get the job done.

  6. Re:300 Jobs for 320 Million by Teancum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't get your complaint. Are you really expecting Elon Musk to personally hire every American into one of his companies?

    Also, there aren't more astronauts in the NASA astronaut corps currently. A total in the entire history from the original Mercury 7 astronauts to right now is 339 candidates have "received their wings" to be certified as astronauts, and not all of them have even been into space. The current number is 43, and likely to go down in the near future.

    On the other hand, this is 300 new jobs for the people of central Texas, and I think they don't mind high paying industrial jobs that bring in money from outside of the immediate area, unlike new jobs that come from Wal-Mart of a Subway restaurant opening up. This is on top of other substantial moves that the companies of Elon Musk have been doing to hire literally thousands of new workers in the past couple of years.

    If only more entrepreneurs had this kind of vision to do something really unique and original.