No Bite Of The Apple: Tech Firm Passes On Expanding In North Carolina

North Carolina has lost a bid to land jobs from one of the most valuable companies on Earth.

Apple Inc. announced that it is choosing Texas as the site for thousands of new technology jobs.

The company says it will build a new $1 billion campus in Austin with 5,000 jobs to start, and the potential to grow to 15,000 employees.

The maker of iPhones and other tech also announced plans to establish new sites in Seattle, and two cities in California. It's also planning expansions of existing operations in Pittsburgh, New York, and Boulder, Co.

While it did not go into detail, the company said there is also “potential for additional expansion elsewhere in the U.S. over time.”

According to company data, Apple employs more than 1,000 people in North Carolina, and 90,000 nationwide.

In a joint statement, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the Republican leaders of the General Assembly, Sen. Phil Berger and Rep. Tim Moore, struck an optimistic tone.

“North Carolina is a great place for business and we have amazing success bringing quality jobs to our state, from corporate headquarters for Charlotte and Raleigh to advanced manufacturing jobs for places like Halifax and Scotland Counties,” the statement says.

The leaders also promise thousands more jobs will be coming to North Carolina in 2019.

“We'll keep doing everything we can to bring more good jobs to North Carolina,” they conclude.

This announcement comes in the wake of several other high-profile losses for the state in the last year, including reportedly coming in second place for a Toyota-Mazda plant that could have landed in the Triad. North Carolina also made an aggressive bid for and Amazon's HQ2, which ultimately went to two other cities.

By revenue, Apple is one of the largest companies in the world, and this year became the first public U.S. firm to be valued at more than $1 trillion.