Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has recently signed a bill which paves the way for the state to eventually provide up to $750 million in cash incentives for Amazon to build its new headquarters in the northernmost part of the state.
The deal was announced last November, would split up the new Amazon headquarters between Virginia and New York City. State governments from all over the country sought to make this deal which promised to bring thousands of high paying jobs to the area. In the case of Virginia, that’s nearly 40,000 over several years.
The piece of legislation creates a fund that would receive and disburse $550 million in incentives for Amazon to bring half of its second headquarters to the Crystal City area. This is only for the first phase of the Amazon project, which is predicted to create a little over half of the total number of jobs. These incentives equal about $22,000 per each job brought in and will not be fully paid out until they are officially created and are generating additional revenue through income tax to pay for them.
Amazon spokeswoman Jill Kerr said : We believe the establishment of our headquarters in Virginia and 25,000 new, high-paying jobs, is a benefit to the entire commonwealth, and we are excited for what the future holds.
Amazon already employs over 8,500 people in the state.
