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Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola found its own Razr a tough act to follow, and that’s meant trouble for its revenue, stock price and employment in Plantation, the west Broward city where it employed 2,500 earlier this decade but now has only about 1,700 on the job.
Sarasota-based xG Technology has 50 engineers in Sunrise. |
But Motorola’s difficulties show how a skilled workforce — a lack of which long has been decried by Florida economic recruiters — can draw employers. Four companies in the last year have moved into west Broward, drawn by that Motorola labor pool.
 Ontario-based Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, now employs more than 200 hardware and software engineers, developing BlackBerry smart phones, at its new R&D facility in Sunrise. It plans to grow to 500 employees. RIM spokeswoman Marisa Conway says the area “offers RIM an excellent location to grow with its highly skilled workforce and proximity to many excellent academic institutions.”
China-based FoxConn International Holdings opened a design center in Sunrise with plans to hire 200, many of the initial wave being laid off Motorola employees, to develop smart phones.
xG Technology, which has a low-cost, long-range way to deliver wireless broadband and voice over internet service, opened operations in Sunrise, where it employs 50 engineers.
In March, General Dynamics C4 Systems held a job fair at a Plantation hotel to hire 20 engineers and administrative people — nearly all at least bachelor’s level posts — to add to the 110 it has hired since last summer at its Sunrise engineering design center devoted to communications work for the military. It chose Sunrise last year because area workers had the “like-skill set” the company wanted, says spokeswoman Fran Jacques.
Says Bob Swindell, senior vice president for business development of economic development group Broward Alliance, “We really see it as an emerging industry for us.” |
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