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GREATER PHILADELPHIA WELL POSITIONED TO WEATHER ECONOMIC CLIMATE Business Week recently named Philadelphia as one of the U.S. cities best prepared to survive a recession. While the article focused on the City, the strength of the entire Greater Philadelphia region is a result of a diverse pool of industries that continue to drive the regional and global economy including life science, information technology, financial and professional services, higher education, logistics and chemicals. Business Facilities Magazine selected Greater Philadelphia as one of its editors' location picks of 2008 – touting the region as an economic development hot spot. According to the article, regional marketing efforts played a big role in the selection process. “Lots of MSAs have a chamber of commerce, but this region has a ‘CEO Council for Growth' that was so determined to create a high-powered entity to market the region it raised $16 million four years ago to establish a business marketing organization called Select Greater Philadelphia, whose job is to be a single source of regional information,” wrote Donna Clapp, Business Facilities writer. “But they didn't stop there: the 425 leaders continue to make themselves available as advocates and ambassadors for the region by meeting with companies that are interested in locating there.” "One thing that we do very well is that we receive a great deal of help from our business community," says Tom Morr, president of Select Greater Philadelphia. "So when companies are looking at locations, we have senior executives in their industry available to meet with them. We had two companies recently that told me they were worried about finding the people they would need to hire if they moved here. We were quickly able to set them up to speak to 22 human resources executives to answer all of their questions. Because when business leaders are there to give them the good, the bad, and the ugly, it's so much more credible." The region, once the heart of the Industrial Revolution, has reinvented itself many times and recently completed another transformation. While there's still a fairly large manufacturing sector, it's now a high-tech manufacturing sector building such things as helicopters and large, high-powered ships. "Now 74% of the workforce here are in the service sector, primarily the knowledge-driven sectors such as our most dominant sector, life sciences," says Morr. "This is our core strength, pharmaceutical, bioscience, and hospitals. We have the history for it here. This area had the first public hospital, the first pharmaceutical school and the first medical school." The region is also well positioned for future growth, with 7,000 students graduating each year and fueling the workforce from 92 colleges and universities. |
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