Bringing tech jobs to rural and small town America (Rep. Tom Perriello)

If a company can hire a phone operator in India, why can’t they hire one in Martinsville, VA? For too long, we’ve had perverse incentives for companies to ship their jobs overseas instead of rewarding them for investing in American workers. This has left areas such as my district, Central and Southern Virginia, with a huge loss in manufacturing jobs and unemployment numbers that are unacceptably high. With this in mind, I have introduced H.R. 3627, the Rural and Small Town Telework Tax Credit Act of 2009. The bill aims to stimulate the growth of tech jobs in rural areas and small towns by providing a tax credit to cover the cost of teleworking equipment and expenses for businesses that hire employees in rural and small town America.

My district is a predominantly rural one that has been stung badly by the recent economic strife, as well as by a decade of bad trade policies that caused jobs to be shipped overseas. This tax credit incentivizes companies to bring jobs back to non-urban regions, and to renew and reward innovation by American entrepreneurs who create American jobs. Not only will this legislation spur job growth, the jobs created will be ones that belong in a 21st century economy. Teleworking is more and more common in today’s global marketplace, and numerous companies have telework centers answering calls from consumers and businesses that use their products. With the unprecedented investment in rural broadband networking in the stimulus package, the resources are increasingly available for teleworking jobs to be created in rural areas and small towns.

The nation’s leading telework education and advocacy organization, the Telework Coalition, announced its support for H.R. 3627 because it has long seen telework as a prudent way of encouraging economic growth in rural areas and small towns. I intend to press strongly for this bill’s passage so that more rural Americans can get back to work.