Dive Brief:
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Contractors in Mesa, AZ, have hoped that Apple would create jobs for them once it breaks ground on a planned $2 billion “command center” in the city, but media there have reported that the computer giant might bypass the locals in favor of larger, out-of-state builders.
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Contractors and architects have told local newspaper and television reporters that they’re worried the computer giant will hire national or California-based companies that it has worked with before.
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Apple owns a 1.3 million-square-foot building in Mesa, where it tried to install a sapphire glass factory to make glass for its iPhones last year before its supplier filed for bankruptcy. That same building will house the new data center.
Dive Insight:
It isn’t unusual for huge, national organizations to bypass local construction crews.
The U.S. Army, for example, awarded just 6% of its contracts for a $1 billion hospital on Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX, to local construction crews in 2013.
Even local governments don’t always hire their own citizens for taxpayer-funded projects. Palm Beach County, for instance, took heavy criticism from local unions for contracting most of the work on a $600 million incinerator project to out-of-state crews.