FACT: Northeast Pennsylvania is the most cost-efficient location for manufacturing companies.

FACT: Northeast PA provides manufacturers with lower operating costs than they will find in any other major city and MSA throughout the Northeastern United States.

FACT: Northeast PA gives manufacturing companies in the food/beverage and plastics sectors proven reasons why their companies will operate at a peak-level of success here.

Greater Hazleton has always been recognized for being a cost-effective location that has lower operating costs than many major markets.

Recently, two verified, independent studies have shown and proven what those in Greater Hazleton and throughout Northeast PA have been saying for decades – manufacturing companies operate in a more cost-effective manner here than anywhere else. The analyses were conducted by The Boyd Company, Inc., a nationally-recognized consulting firm that provides independent site selection counsel to corporations.

In compiling the Comparative Annual Operation Cost Analysis, the studies focused on the elements that were considered the most pivotal to the corporate site selection process, including comparative labor costs, comparative electric power and natural gas costs, land acquisition and construction costs and property and sales tax costs.

In the report, the Hazleton/Wilkes-Barre/Scranton MSA ranked the lowest in total annual operating costs among 10 MSAs for food/beverage manufacturing and eight MSAs for plastics manufacturing. These findings are hardly surprising to those in Northeast PA, as the region is already home to some of the top companies in the food processing and plastics clusters.

To create the comparison, the food/beverage study used a hypothetical 225,000-square-foot production facility employing 350 workers. Operating cost differentials were based on the latest first-quarter 2017 figures. The report was designed to compare costs across various food and beverage processing industry sectors.

For the plastics study, the overall operating costs were compiled for each region using a hypothetical 175,000-square-foot facility with 225 employees. The operating cost differentials were based on the latest third-quarter 2016 figures.