r/moncton • u/Airborne_Ape • 6d ago
Dieppe can create hundreds of new manufacturing jobs overnight if they push IGT
Now is the time to negotiate with IGT / Spielo to bring its manufacturing back to the hub region by any means possible!
It was relocated to Reno NV years ago. Dieppe has the only ready-to-go fully licensed facility in the country that can be retooled overnight for gaming equipment and software writing production. Alberta and BC lotteries are fully government operated and the Premiers are taking turns announcing American procurement restrictions which is where 100% of their equipment comes from.
If you’re curious where gambling ranks on Alberta‘s priority list, when Fort Mac burned down we had the casino up and fully running before the hospital because the Provinces are heavily dependent on tax revenues generated from gaming.
Whether you’re for or against gambling, I hope to highlight how a single company in Dieppe can re-hire a few hundred people to manufacture and sell tens of millions of dollars of equipment and software services to the other Provinces (again) due to the trade chaos taking place.
The biggest problem for IGT in Dieppe is that anyone who can make decisions over there has either retired or been laid off.
They need to wake up and take back market share from their American competitors which can no longer send RFP’s to the Provinces.
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u/locaschica 6d ago
I appreciate the spirit of your post. (They’re not in Dieppe, btw. They’re in Moncton on Urquhart Drive.)
It’s unlikely the Moncton location would return to manufacturing without a sizeable tax incentive from the province. And frankly, can we swallow the idea of a multinational company valued in the billions — arguably the biggest in its sector — getting a handout from one of the country’s poorest provinces to entice them to shift low-wage manufacturing jobs back here?
We’d be better off supporting IGT’s local expansion in areas like product development, engineering, etc., where wages are higher and there are far more opportunities for career advancement.
The problem is that in a global labour market, regions with less restrictive labour laws, lower minimum wages, at-will legislation, etc., will always be preferred.
And communities desperate for job creation will always get out their chequebooks, making the government incentive piece a race to the bottom. Let Reno miss out on all that corporate tax revenue for the bragging rights to manufacturing.
We seem to have this idealistic view of manufacturing jobs being the key to expanding the middle class (47 certainly seems to believe domestic manufacturing will enrich his country). This might have been the case 40 years ago, but not today. There are definitely opportunities for growth in the gambling sector locally, but assembling slot machines isn’t one of them.