As the company that revolutionized the mobile industry and continues to set the bar, Apple has no problem getting an audience with local and state governments when it announces plans for expansion. So the Austin City Council was all ears last summer when Apple (AAPL) started talking about locating a new campus in northwest Austin. Late yesterday the council sealed the deal by approving $8.6 million in property tax breaks for Apple, which will qualify the company for an additional $21 million in incentives from the Texas Enterprise Fund.
Apple says its new Austin facility will create about 3,600 jobs over ten years, mostly in non-technical roles supporting customers in North and South America. The company already employs roughly 3,500 Austinites in customer support and chip design jobs. After the expansion was announced two weeks ago, some critics of the deal claimed that Apple would have picked Austin for its new campus even without local tax breaks. But the city council voted unanimously yesterday to keep the tax incentives in place.
Apple’s website shows that most jobs in hardware, software, design, marketing, and product management remain based near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. Customer support and finance jobs seem more plentiful in Austin. Spanish speakers are in demand, suggesting that Austin will be a launchpad for Apple’s Latin American customer outreach initiatives.
RCR’s TelecomCareers is the number one global telecom and wireless job board.
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