GE opens a new refrigerator plant at Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, today. The plant is part of GE Appliances’ $1 billion drive to bring manufacturing to the U.S. and create 1,300 new jobs. But the investment also feeds a fertile economic ecosystem that thrives beyond GE factory gates.
Here’s how. A new study commissioned by GE estimated that the company and its 5,000 Kentucky employees help support through their spending and purchasing additional 7,300 jobs in the state. The study calculated that about one out of every 189 jobs in the Commonwealth Kentucky benefits from the economic link between GE and its employees, and their partners and customers.
The same relationship also helps generate an estimated $1.6 billion per year to Kentucky’s economy. This includes $746 million in GE’s direct spending, and additional $861 million in indirect purchases by GE employees, their households, and by GE vendors spending the company’s payments. “That’s why renewing American manufacturing is so important,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt.
“Today, we launch our new bottom freezer refrigerator,” Immelt said. “It’s a great day for GE and Appliance Park. It’s also a great day for this community, for Kentucky and for our country – because what you see here is proof that in America, we can create jobs. We can compete. And we can win.”
