The Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corp., a public-private partnership that promotes local job growth and retention, shared an annual report Tuesday with the Santa Clarita City Council.  In January 2024, the city of Santa Clarita approved a three-year renewal of its annual $240,000 co mmitment to the organization.  At this week’s City Council meeting, Ondré Seltzer, CEO of the SCV Economic Development Corp., shared an update on the group’s accomplishments and its strategies around attracting new businesses to the area.  Seltzer leads the 15-year-old collaboration of business leaders, who make up the organization’s governing board; College of the Canyons, which hosts the EDC; and the city and the county, which give financial support.  Seltzer said he wanted to talk about the next 15 years during Tuesday’s presentation.  The goals have always included a few key pillars, such as identifying target industries, and then business retention and growth efforts for those industries, like helping companies find incentives and the right location for their operation.   “But a new component that we’re really pushing forward is the ‘foreign direct investment,’ Seltzer said during his presentation Tuesday to the council, “attracting the right type of global companies that complement our local supply chains … specifically on workforce development,” he said. “Which ensures a skilled and competitive workforce for the future.” One of the strengths of having an EDC, he said, is that if a business is considering a possible SCV relocation, the EDC is the group that can provide all the data needed to explain why the SCV is the best choice and where in the SCV might be the best place.   Some of the data mentioned Tuesday include the growth of the area’s median household income, from $90,000 to $121,000, and the overall SCV labor force from 134,400 to 143,769.  The target industries the organization has for the SCV include digital media and entertainment, aerospace and defense, biosciences and medical devices, advanced manufacturing, company headquarters and information technology.  Across all industries, Seltzer reported 1,461 jobs in the SCV, with 21 companies assisted through its attraction and expansion support and 31 assistance projects, which were largely in those target clusters.   Local outreach by the organization includes events intended to bring together employers from the target clusters the EDC has identified, such as supporting advanced manufacturing with the Aerospace and Defense Forum, a new media entertainment collaborative to support a challenging local entertainment industry and the organization’s keynote annual event, the Economic Outlook, a well-known annual financial forecast that touches on the local, state, national and global pictures for the coming year.  The post Business advocates discuss hiring, growth with City Council  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal. ...read more read less