Big Blue is gearing up for a job fair on June 25 to fill a number of high-tech positions in its new IBM Services Center in downtown Baton Rouge. Java application specialists, Cognos developers, business analysts, Oracle database administrators: That’s just the beginning of the professionals the company seeks. They’re the kind of jobs Baton Rouge isn’t accustomed to seeing en masse in the local classifieds. In April 2013, Business Report dubbed the IBM deal a “game changer.” The changed game, it seems, is afoot.
“By the time Gov. Bobby Jindal announced IBM’s plans to bring an 800-job technology center to the heart of downtown, the worst-kept secret in Baton Rouge was out of the bag. For months, in fact, the Capital Region had been abuzz about the efforts of state economic development officials and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to lure the blue-chip giant to the Red Stick through a unique public-private partnership that includes incentives, promises to provide a skilled, high-tech workforce of freshly minted computer science graduates, and a brand-new, $55 million, mixed-use complex with an eight-story office tower, 11-story apartment building and parking garage overlooking the Mississippi River. With the details now revealed, it’s easy to understand the exuberance over the IBM deal. This is big for Baton Rouge. Very big.”
—From the April 2, 2013, issue of Business Report
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