Transportation Company to Expand Louisville Offices

With a promise of city and state tax rebates, a British transportation company is expanding its operations in Louisville.Invensys Rail will add 75 jobs that pay around $70,000 a year to its east Louisvile office, which currently employs about 275 people.Among other products, the transportation company develops automated railroad transit systems, but Mayor Greg Fischer's spokesperson Chris Poynter says the company's expansion will not have any effect on local transportation."Most of their work has been in other cities," he says. "They do a lot of work for rail companies all over the country, but we should certainly talk to them about what they've done for other cities and how we can work with them."This is the largest single-company expansion to happen during Fischer's tenure as mayor, but Louisville's total job numbers remain at a net loss since the 2008 recession.Poynter says layoffs and downsizing are inevitable in the current economy, and the best way to recover is to continue adding several dozen jobs at a time. Still, the administration is touting its job attraction accomplishments since the beginning of the year when Fischer took office."Dharma Construction relocated its corporate headquarters back in January. Kindred obviously did a huge acquisition of a company that will result in 150 new headquarter jobs over time," says Poynter. "But this is really the largest number of jobs created with one company since the mayor took office."Invensys was considering moving the jobs to Jacksonville, Florida, but decided to stay after Metro officials offered Invensys $1.8 million in tax rebates.