After nearly 100 years Caterpillar is moving out of Illinois
Texas has been able to entice one of Illinois' biggest companies Catapillar (CAT) to make the official move down south, and it is a massive blow for the Land of Lincoln.
According to bloomberg.com, Caterpillar or CAT is moving its headquarters out of Illinois to the Dallas, Texas area after being headquartered in the Land of Lincoln for nearly 100 years. In the article they say...
"The machinery producer believes the move will help it attract new talent and improve global access to its employees, customers and dealer network due to the two major airports in the region, according to an email to Bloomberg News. The company said in a statement it will begin shifting its Deerfield headquarters to Irving, Texas, this year, affecting 230 jobs."
To read more about the move click here!
The article goes on to talk about how Caterpillar is following in the footsteps of other major companies from other states that are making the move to Texas like Tesla out of California, and they talk about how there are over 17,000 people in Illinois who work for CAT and will continue to work for the company here in Illinois.
Personally, the thing that hurts the most is that a giant company like CAT doesn't think it can attract new talent to live in Illinois, that is a smack in the face to Illinois. But what makes it really hurt is that sadly Illinois can't really compete with Texas, the taxes, the weather, the tech growth, Illinois is great but in order to keep companies like CAT from picking up and moving south, you have to incentivize them to stay.