By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
During his weekly Capitol press conference on Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear announced a new employment record in Kentucky: for the first time ever, over two million Kentuckians are now working.
The figures were released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in their latest federal survey of business establishments.
Beshear said 2,009,500 are now employed in the state, which is 56,700 more than when he took office in December 2019.
“Even while we dealt with a pandemic, tornadoes, flooding, a polar plunge, two ice storms, an historic windstorm and so much more. This is really exciting news, having never had more than two million Kentuckians employed at one time.”
He called the milestone a result of the efforts of people in every Kentucky community, making this a banner day.
“This is our best chance to turn our brain drain into a brain gain, making sure we never lose our talented young people to any other state ever again, but instead other states’ talented young people start moving to Kentucky,” Beshear stated. “Our goal is to ensure the success we’re seeing reaches every area of the commonwealth, and that no one is left out. There are more secure jobs out there for Kentuckians than ever before, and this is an exciting time for our families.”
Gov. Beshear also highlighted the first Kentucky Product Development Initiative to be completed as the latest step toward turning around a failed investment from the Bevin Administration, with the proposed Braidy Industries plant in the Ashland area.
In September of 2022, the Governor announced his administration had recouped $15 million invested by the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin into an aluminum mill that never materialized. On Thursday, Beshear announced that the Northeast Kentucky Regional Industrial Authority closed on the site acquisition in the EastPark Industrial Park, finalizing the process of acquiring additional acreage in addition to land donated back to the community. He also noted that $750,000 in state support for the $1.5 million project was dispersed.
“We fought to get that land back,” the Governor noted. “Coming in, I never would have thought that we could secure both the money and the land, but we are now at a special place where we can have a real project, real hope and real jobs. Now we have one of the bigger sites in the commonwealth to put the next big economic development project on.”
Let us not forget Beshear has done everything in his Executive Authority (and more as lawsuits have decided and reprimanded him for), to close our economy.
We can thank our Representatives and Senators for creating a business-friendly Commonwealth which yields more higher paying careers.