Overseas firms bringing up to 300
jobs to Chicago
GREG HINZ ON
POLITICS
Photo by Wikimedia Commons
Mayor
Rahm Emanuel is highlighting a trio of economic announcements today that
collectively involve up to 300 jobs now, and potentially more later.
Rio
Tinto Group, a London-based mining and metals company, is opening a sales and
marketing office downtown that will employ about 70 people by the end of the
year. A company spokesman said the firm has leased 18,000 square feet—half a
floor—in the Aon Center, and all of the jobs will be either newly created or
transferred from other parts of the country.
The
office will put the company in closer contact with existing and future
customers, and gives Rio Tinto "access to the U.S. talent pool,"
Chief Commercial Officer Simon Trott said in a statement. Most of the company's
current 3,000 U.S. employees now work in western states.
A
bigger group of workers is involved in a decision by DMG Mori, a German
machine-tool company, to move its North American headquarters from Hoffman
Estates to a location on or near the campus of the Illinois Institute of
Technology in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
An
exact location has not been determined, but the shift will provide an
"opportunity for us to interact on a daily basis with the faculty and
students of IIT," DMG Mori USA President James Nudo said in a statement.
Nudo called that "unique in our industry." Said IIT President Alan
Cramb, "IIT is a university where students learn by creating, building and
solving, and we couldn't think of a better educational opportunity for our
students to work with and learn from a company like DMG Mori."
The
city says many, though not necessarily all, of the firm's roughly 225 workers
in Hoffman Estates will be relocated to the IIT-area office.
No
city incentives were involved in the Rio Tinto and DMG Mori moves, according to
City Hall.
Emanuel
also announced in a midday speech that Chicago leads the U.S. in foreign direct
investment for the sixth year in a row in an IBM Global Locations Trends
report. (You can read the full report below.) The city also moved up a notch to
fifth place globally, trailing only London, Paris, Singapore and
Amsterdam-Rotterdam in total projects, Emanuel said.
The
city already is home to 1,800 foreign-based companies that collectively have
invested more than $100 billion here, said Emanuel, who at the beginning of the
week returned from a trade mission to China and Japan.