Virginia is bringing manufacturing back to the United States — 'on-shoring' jobs and investment, reversing a generation-long trend of watching them slowly drift overseas:

Micron is investing $3 billion to build semiconductors in Manassas—one of the largest manufacturing investments in the history of Virginia.
Thanks to Virginia’s investments, Wytheville has attracted the largest investment in Southwest Virginia in a generation—a major joint venture committing to employ 2,500 people to manufacture up to 60 billion medical gloves a year.
In Petersburg, Phlow Corporation executed a $354 million contract with the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to re-imagine domestic production of essential medications.
Its partner, AMPAC Fine Chemicals, is investing $25 million to expand manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients here in the United States.
Next door, another partner, pharmaceutical manufacturer Civica Inc., is investing more than $124 million to establish its first in-house pharmaceutical manufacturing operation. The Civica plant will convert active pharmaceutical ingredients from AMPAC and Phlow into vials and syringes of finished medications for use in hospitals. The facility will employ more than 180 people to address chronic drug shortages and produce essential medication right here in Virginia, and not overseas.

People are working in Virginia

Virginia’s unemployment rate is 3.8%—a full 1.0% below the national rate of 4.8%.

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Virginia is investing in people.

Raising the minimum wage—for the first time in a generation—to $12 an hour by 2023. It had been just $7.25 an hour over the last 12 years.

Creating free community college, for workers choosing high-need fields.

Toughening safety standards and banning discrimination in the workplace.

Providing eight weeks of paid parental leave for state employees for the birth or adoption of a child—and passing bipartisan legislation to sign it into law.

Making historic investments in affordable housing—more than doubling the number of affordable housing units created and preserved each year. The Northam Administration has invested more than $145 million in the Virginia Housing Trust Fund—a 13-fold increase, up from just $11 million when Governor Northam took office.

Virginia is for broadband.

Virginia is on track to become one of the first states to achieve universal access to broadband and access to high-speed internet by 2024, thanks to historic investments. Virginia anticipates more than $2 billion in total broadband funding, thanks to local and private sector matching fund. (That’s 90% of the way to closing the digital divide.)
Virginia has posted $874 million in state appropriations under Governor Northam to connect more than 429,000 homes, businesses, and community institutions. When he took office in 2018, an estimated 660,000 Virginia homes and businesses remained without internet, while the state invested barely $4 million annually.

Virginia is leading in renewable energy:

Governor Northam signed the Virginia Clean Economy Act—to achieve 30% renewable energy by 2030, and setting Virginia on the path to a carbon-free electric grid by 2050.

That’s enabling Dominion Energy to build the country’s largest new renewable energy project and the country’s first federally licensed offshore wind farm, 27 miles off-shore from Virginia Beach. The project will provide up to 8.8 million megawatts per year—enough renewable electricity to power up to 660,000 homes.

And clean energy is creating jobs too. Virginia secured an agreement to establish the first offshore wind turbine blade facility in the United States—Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is building a plant in Portsmouth to supply Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm—and propelling a new manufacturing industry in Hampton Roads.
Virginia ranks fourth in solar installations made in 2020, behind only California, Texas and Florida. (Virginia jumped 15 spots, with installations increasing by a factor of more than 10 recently.)

When COVID-19 hit, Virginia helped people and small businesses recover.

Virginia’s Rent Relief program is recognized as the best in the country— it both helps people stay in their homes, and protects landlords too.

The Rebuild Virginia economic recovery plan awarded more than $370 million to help sustain more than 3,000 small businesses and nonprofits during the pandemic.

No other state has done this — ever.

It’s no surprise Virginia became the first state to earn CNBC’s ‘Top State’ honor over and over (winning in 2019, holding through 2020’s pandemic, winning again in 2021).

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