Google Building Data Center In Lenoir NC

Friday, Google said that it would invest about $600 million to build a new data center in Lenoir, NC. This data center will create about 200 jobs and bring a much needed economic boost to an area of North Carolina that has been hit hard by thousands of layoffs in the textile and furniture industries.

The average salary in the Lenoir area is about $20,000 per year and the expected annual salary of an employee at the Google data center will be around $48,000, meaning a nice boost to local economies.

Google is planning to train local people for jobs as computer repair technicians. That means that people who have worked in the furniture or textile industries could qualify since they will be using many of the same basic skills and would be trained for job-specific tasks.

In return, North Carolina has promised to pay Google about $5 million dollars in incentives and that number could approach $100 million if Google creates and sustains the 210 jobs for 12 years.

Even though Google has plenty of money, this is a big investment for them. In the third quarter of last year, Google spent less than $600 million on their entire capital expenditures (pity-party signup below 😉 ).

UPDATE: Updates on this project can be see on our web design blog. Here is the link to the latest update.