Rocky Mount to get up to 200 new jobs

by Tom Campbell, Producer and Moderator of NC SPIN, March 5, 2019.

Tuesday morning the Council of State approved the move of the DMV from their headquarters on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh to the old Hardee’s hamburgers headquarters building on Church Street in Rocky Mount.

The state was directed by the legislature and by safety regulators to move the headquarters and a request for proposal was issued. The Rocky Mount site was low bidder from those proposals submitted,  but from the moment it was announced there have been warnings, threats and pressures to reconsider the bid.

Legislators representing Wake County protested the loss of jobs in their district. The State Employees Association chimed in that the move would inconvenience employees who would have to face commutes of up to two hours per day. Last week there was the threat that the Hardee’s building had flooded on several occasions. And in Tuesday’s News and Observer there was a report that the DMV had surveyed the more than 400 headquarters employees last week to discern how many would choose to leave rather than face the commute. Only 255 employees answered the survey, but of that number only 48 said they would remain with the agency.

Of course this is a nonbinding survey and it remains to be seen how many will actually decide to leave their jobs, but if it is true Rocky Mount could gain as many as 200 new jobs. This area was hard hit by the recession and storms and has been slow to recover, so this could be good news.

Aside from the economic development to this region, there are problems to resolve. In addition to  having to hire and train a large percentage of new employees while still attempting to provide service to the millions of motorists in our state, the agency is trying to enroll people in the Real ID federal identification program and also implement the recently passed Voter ID requirements.