How a quiet regulatory reform is being credited with generating 600 Virginia jobs

Very quietly, a piece of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's regulatory reform program has had the same kind of impact on employment as some of the biggest recent wins by economic development officials wooing major employers, the governor said Thursday.

Legislation last year clearing the way for people to work in Virginia with occupational licenses from other states -- credentials like those for barbers, land surveyors and contractors -- has brought nearly 600 people to work in Virginia, Youngkin told a gathering of some 250 workforce development and education officials in Henrico County on Thursday.

"We work really hard for a company to come announce they're going to hire five- or six-hundred people; how about this common-sense legislation that unleashes opportunity, gets bureaucracy out of the way, recognizes the value of an individual and says 'come work,'" Youngkin said.

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Later, he told reporters he expects to propose legislation to expand the program beyond the 85 occupations it now covers.

"It'll be a very robust program," he said.

So far, he said, the program has had a big impact filling jobs where employers find it can be hard to hire staff.

"This has moved very quickly ... we really haven't spent a whole of time advertising this, we've just made it available to people, and so it's a great opportunity for us, particularly in a lot of hard-to-hire areas," he said.

Youngkin told the officials gathered at the Advanced Career Education Center at Hermitage High School that Virginia is moving to a more proactive effort on economic development.

Goochland-based Performance Food Group, No. 84 on Fortune 500, is expanding

"We need to be looking around the corner," he said.

Later, he said an example of that is the Virginia Economic Development Partnership's push to identify business sectors to target.

With that, the partnership has been able to create pitches that can fast-track businesses' decisions about locating facilities, by highlighting what Virginia can offer with Virginians' current talents, with training programs, energy supply and transportation.

That has already paid off with the Danish firm Topsoe's announcement this spring that it will hire 150 and invest $400 million to build a plant at Chesterfield County's Meadowville Technology Park. It will make a new kind of hydrogen fuel cell, one that the company says can generate clean energy for fossil-fuel users like steel mills and shipping companies that cannot simply electrify operations and that generate nearly a third of the world's greenhouse gases.

A more proactive targeting effort also convinced the Norwegian aerospace firm Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace Inc. to set up a plant to make and maintain missiles in James City County, a $71 million investment that will create more than 180 jobs.

"The Virginia playbook is working, and that just means we need to run the play faster and bigger and bolder so that more people can participate," Youngkin said.

RVA 100: 100 people, places, things that you should know about Richmond

The RVA 100 are the people, places, things that make Richmond so special. The Times-Dispatch will be highlighting 100 quintessential Richmond icons starting Aug. 1 and running throughout the year.

Submit your ideas for what and who we should feature at go.richmond.com/rva100yourturn.

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