St. Petersburg Times: Florida company creates 800 jobs – in Texas

Plantation-based C3 recently announced it would create 800 jobs at a pair of Texas locations, including a new call center near Waco. The news stuck in the craw of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who has made job creation his No. 1 goal and competition with his Texas counterpart a close No. 2.

We’re told that Texas Gov. Rick Perry joked about the C3 news to some Floridians at a recent book signing in San Antonio, where the National Conference of State Legislatures is holding its annual meeting. “Just got off the phone with your governor who’s angry because Texas stole some jobs from Florida,” Perry said, according to one of the attendees.

It’s not been a great month so far for Scott on the job-creation front. Vision Airlines, a company that helped usher in Scott’s term with expansion plans in Panama City, said Monday that it would cancel service from Northwest Florida Regional Airport to more than half of its current destinations.

Scott is hoping for good news on Aug. 19, when the state’s new unemployment report is scheduled to be released. “We’ve got a lot of companies that we’re talking to about moving jobs down here,” Scott said this morning on WCOA-AM in Pensacola. “People want to live here. People want to work here.”