Magic Pot of Jobs

Houston, Texas, a city which already has a low unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, will soon have even more new jobs in Houston to offer qualified residents. Scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2008, Fox News‘ brand-new facility will be a welcomed addition to the area’s job market.

According to the Chronicle, an area newspaper, a large portion of these new Houston jobs will be “highly paid technical jobs.” Ron Bourbeau, the CEO of the South Montgomery County Economic Development Partnership, says that such a large addition of new Houston jobs “says something about the economic viability of this community.”

Fox bought the site of their new facility in spring of 2006 with the goal of creating a center for Fox Network Center-Houston to transmit broadcasts via cable and satellite throughout country. The facility will be a master control for two of the Fox owned networks, FSN Houston and FSN Southwest.

Located on Research Forest Drive south of Technology Forest Drive, the center will also be a hub for other Fox networks, according to Tim Sweeney, senior vice president of general manger of Fox Network Center-Houston. “It is like Grand Central Station for these arriving entities,” Sweeney went on to say, referring to the center as a “behind-the-scenes facility”. At this time no studio is planned for this location, although 30 acres of the site have been set aside for future expansions to be used as other needs are identified.

When the center opens it will create approximately 400 Houston jobs, according to Sweeney. He followed this by saying that the workforce will increase as the facility grows. As to why Fox chose The Woodlands for it’s Houston Hub, he said that the decision was made due to the “wonderful base for the possibility of employees for the future.” Employees who specialize in everything from technical monitoring to date processing to management will be needed to run to site.

There has been talk of opening the facility, which is has a guarded gate entrance that is monitored 24 hours a day, to students and other who are interested in pursuing careers with Fox. This means that, aside from a large number of new Houston jobs, there will likely be internship opportunities for area college students.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Job Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.