Jobs For Connecticut Now

As the government prepares Thursday to commit billions of dollars to bring high-speed Internet to rural areas, the biggest-¬ever such project has collapsed. The company Open Range, backed by a commitment of $267 million in loans from the Agriculture Department, filed for bankruptcy this month. Taxpayers are on the hook for $74 million that the upstart hasn’t repaid. And now the company, some analysts and a senior government official are blaming poor judgment and Washington bureaucracy as the reasons Open Range failed. Read more

Facing the nation’s worst record of job creation, Democrats and Republicans in Connecticut this week tried something drastic: cooperation. In a one-day special session, they passed virtually unanimously a $626 million economic development package created over six weeks of negotiations. The state has had no net gain in employment in the past 22 years. At a time of political warfare in Washington and elsewhere and gridlock over President Obama’s jobs bill, members of both parties took a rare collective victory lap after the passage of the legislation, which Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed on Thursday. Read More

The state’s economic recovery continued to outpace the nation’s, although economists predicted shrinking global demand for the state’s technology products could hurt future growth, according to a new report released today by the University of Massachusetts. Massachusetts’ economy grew at an annual rate of 3.9 percent between July and September, up from 3.4 percent in the previous quarter. The U.S. economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate during the same period, nearly doubling from 1.3 percent pace in previous quarter. according to the U.S. Department of Commerce reported today. Read More

HARTFORD — Connecticut lawmakers Wednesday approved a major $917 million bonding investment in job creation that generated a rare bipartisan vote on one bill and a party line tally on another. The vote on the $626 million initiative that will infuse funds immediately into fixing the state’s bridges, open up tax credits and loans for small businesses, augment job training at technical high schools and community colleges and offer incentives to hire the unemployed passed 147 to 1 in the House early in the evening, with the state Senate following suit 34-1 shortly before 9 p.m. Read More

Lawmakers on Wednesday easily approved a $626 million package of incentives designed to create jobs, revive the economy and undo the state’s image as hostile to business.  The votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate were nearly unanimous. Only two Republican lawmakers — Rep. Chris Coutu of Norwich and Sen. Kevin Witkos of Canton — voted “no.” Read More

Lawmakers on Wednesday easily approved a $626 million package of incentives designed to create jobs, revive the economy and undo the state’s image as hostile to business.  The votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate were nearly unanimous. Only two Republican lawmakers — Rep. Chris Coutu of Norwich and Sen. Kevin Witkos of Canton — voted “no.” Read More

A bill that will provide $291 million in state funding for Jackson Laboratory’s (JAX) new billion dollar personalised medicine project on the campus of the University of Connecticut Health Center has been cleared. A collaborative effort between Jackson Laboratory, the State of Connecticut, the University of Connecticut and Yale University, the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine will accelerate the development of new medical treatments tailored to each patient’s unique genetic makeup. The development will result in new biotech jobs. Read more

The U.S. Air Force says the Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee poured nearly $238 into the local economy in the financial year ending Sept. 30, marking a $29 million drop over the previous year. The decline is due a $4.2 million decrease in payroll spending, a $22 million fall in construction expenditure and a $3.3 million drop in the estimated value of the nearly 1,060 indirect jobs created by the air base. Read More

The unemployment rate in Massachusetts dropped to 7.3 percent in September, according to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. This marks the state’s lowest unemployment rate since January 2009. Nationally, the unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent and job growth is at 1.1 percent. This decrease in unemployment follows a trend in the Bay State. So far this year, despite a stagnant beginning, almost 48,000 have been added. And compared with September 2010, there has been a 1.5 percent job growth rate. Private sector growth rate is at 2 percent. Read More

More than 1,000 people representing a cross section of the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem gathered at the MassChallenge 2011 Award Ceremony last night. In addition to awarding $1M in cash prizes to startups as part of the MassChallenge Startup Competition and Accelerator, Startup Massachusetts was officially launched as a statewide effort to support entrepreneurs and help startups drive job creation. Startup Massachusetts is the fourth regional initiative collaborating with the Startup America Partnership, an organization working to help young companies grow in order to create jobs in America. Read More