Butler County has been among the Ohio’s leaders in creating jobs, which officials say is connected to the area’s business-friendly practices, location between two major metro areas and availability of land to build or expand.
The county saw a 1.5 percent increase in employment between March 2017 and March 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Here’s a look at seven organizations that have contributed to that job growth in the region recently:
Middletown Energy Center
NTE Energy cut the ribbon in May 2018 on its new Middletown Energy Center at 3439 Cincinnati-Dayton Road.
The Middletown Energy Center is the biggest development project in Middletown since the approximately $400 million SunCoke Energy coke plant was built on Yankee Road to supply AK Steel Holding Corp. SunCoke Energy Middletown opened at the end of 2011. Officials said it would employ 25 to 30 people.
ThyssenKrupp Bilstein
ThyssenKrupp Bilstein, which manufactures highly adjustable shock absorbers for vehicles, previously had 185 employees in Hamilton. Today, that figure is 800. That ranks the company as Hamilton’s second-biggest employer, behind Fort Hamilton Hospital, which has more than 950 employees.
Barclaycard
The international credit card servicing company opened its call center at 101 Knightsbridge Drive in Hamilton inside the Vora Technology Park in February 2016 with a promise to create about 1,500 new jobs in coming years.
It’s grown from 50 employees then to more than 400 employees, the majority of whom work on the building’s fourth floor. With the recent renovation and opening of the third floor, Barclaycard has added 32,000 square feet and more than 380 desks.
ODW Logistics
In 2015, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved an estimated $108,000 worth of tax credits for ODW Logistics & Transportation Services, which has operated in Hamilton since 2009 and offers transportation management services.
In exchange, the Hamilton location agreed to grow to at least 77 employees in the next three years. The growth was expected to amount to $2 million in new, yearly payroll.
The Christ Hospital Medical Center-Liberty Township
The Christ Hospital Medical Center-Liberty Twp. made its debut in January 2018 on 17 acres at 6939 Cox Road near the Interstate 75 interchange with Ohio 129.
The $62 million medical facility includes an emergency room and offers surgical services including operating rooms with extended recovery for patients, plus a state-of-the-art family birthing center, radiology and imaging, physical therapy, general surgery, dermatology, endocrinology and podiatry.
Koch Foods
Koch Foods, a Park Ridge, Ill.-based company, opened at 4100 Port Union Road in Fairfield in October 1999 with two production lines and 50 employees, and now has seven lines with state-of-the-art equipment and 1,050 employees.
Koch Foods serve all 50 states as well as countries worldwide. As of April 2018, it planned to hire 150 new employees for all three shifts and positions in the company’s production departments as general laborers, grinding, machine and packing operators, quality assurance technicians and the company’s warehouse departments as freezer warehouse, inventory control and data capture palletizing.
Pacific Manufacturing
Auto parts supplier Pacific Manufacturing Ohio in 2016 detailed plans for a new, approximately $50 million expansion of its Fairfield operations.
Since that announcement, it has grown from about 540 employees to about 700.
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