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A talented workforce, not tax breaks, are key if you want to attract jobs

The Times

Adam Hawksbee writes for The Times on the role of England’s mayors in building a skills pipeline. He writes:

“Five years ago Amazon started the search for “HQ2”, its second headquarters. It had outgrown its Seattle base and issued a call for proposals for a $5 billion project that it claimed would house 50,000 workers. Cue the “Hunger Games for cities” in which US mayors climbed over each other to offer the tech behemoth the best deal. As the chancellor reconsiders the scope and scale of “investment zones”, this episode offers some important lessons.

“[…] Competitions for inward investment are rarely as public as the one Amazon ran for its new home but they are happening all the time, with companies carefully weighing up areas across the world for expansion. If Britain’s towns and cities want to get to the front of the line they will need more from the government than tax breaks.”

You can read the full piece here.

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