Writer: Ryan Gandolfo
Regional Review is a year-end series from Capital Analytics that looks at key developments throughout the year and sets the stage for what’s to come in the near future.
3 min read December 2023 — From major developments in the health and education sectors to the state’s continued investment in target industries, New Jersey is poised for growth in 2024 despite a setback for its offshore wind ambitions.
The Garden State’s real GDP growth is expected to remain moderate in 2024, at a pace of 1.3%, according to TD Economics. Illustrating the challenges New Jersey faces, the state saw the largest unemployment rate increase across U.S. states in 2023, although its health and education sectors provided strong support, bringing in about 3 out of 4 net new jobs.
A focus on the health and education sectors is set to continue, exemplified by the state’s largest investment in life sciences and medical education underway in New Brunswick, with the $731 million HELIX Health + Life Science Exchange connecting New Jersey’s top healthcare and education organizations near the New Brunswick train station.
“New Brunswick has always been a major component of the innovation culture for centuries. From the Johnson brothers to Thomas Edison, Selman Waksman to Shirley Jackson, the HELIX draws on the region’s DNA as a place of innovation and invention ushering in a new era of ideas and inventions,” Christopher Paladino, president and CEO of New Brunswick Development Corporation (DEVCO) told Invest: earlier this year.
The development includes the 574,000-square-foot H-1, the first building of the HELIX, that represents nearly $800 million of investment. It will house the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers Translational Research, and the New Jersey Innovation HUB, which will serve as an epicenter for early stage companies and startups. The HELIX is described as an innovation district providing tech and life science companies, universities, entrepreneurs, and students the critical ecosystem to discover, learn, work, and collaborate.
“It’s a holistic approach to science and medical education and the most significant investment in life science research in New Jersey’s history. Simply put, we expect creative collisions to occur at the HELIX,” said Paladino.
While investment into the health and education sectors continues to flow, labor disputes have been a central theme of 2023. In December, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) and the union representing about 1,700 of its nurses reached a tentative agreement that ended a four-month strike. Union nurses had been advocating for higher wages, stronger benefits, and better nurse-to-patient ratios.
Another sector that has seen significant investment but which met with challenges over the past year is clean energy. Gov. Phil Murphy has signed multiple executive orders since 2019 to raise the state’s offshore wind goal and achieve a 100% clean energy economy by 2050. In October, the administration was dealt a blow as Danish wind energy developer Ørsted ceased development of Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 off the coast of southern New Jersey. David Hardy, the company’s group executive vice president and CEO Americas, said that “macroeconomic factors have changed dramatically over a short period of time, with high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks impacting our long-term capital investments.”
Despite the setback, the state Senate Environment and Energy Committee is still working to pass legislation that would set a new clean-electricity standard to help the state achieve aggressive targets for pollution reduction and energy transition.
Like other states in the mid-Atlantic, New Jersey has dealt with highs and lows throughout 2023, but the overall trend has been positive, as indicated by CNBC’s 2023 America’s Top States for Business rankings. New Jersey was named the most improved state, jumping from No. 42 to No. 19.
“We have a great story to tell. We’ve seen a lot of momentum in several indicators in our economy,” said Wesley Mathews, president and CEO of Choose New Jersey, at the Invest: North & Central Jersey 2022-2023 launch conference in August.
“I don’t think any other state in recent memory has had that kind of jump. That means responsible stewardship of the economy, good leadership at the state level, business leaders who are bought in and engaged in the state’s growth trajectory, birthing new economic sectors like offshore wind and revitalizing old ones like film and digital media,” he added.
Top image via Hudson County
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