Economy
The majority of the population is employed in the Services, Wholesale and Retail Trades and Government sectors. Corpus Christi enjoys a below-average unemployment rate of 7.0% as of July 2012.
The Port of Corpus Christi, which is the fifth largest U.S. port and deepest inshore port on the Gulf of Mexico, handles mostly oil and agricultural products. Much of the local economy is driven by tourism and the oil & petrochemicals industry. In 2005, the Port was ranked as the 47th largest in the world by cargo tonnage.
Corpus Christi is home to two installations of the United States military: the Corpus Christi Army Depot, and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Combined, these installations provide 6,200 civilian jobs to the local economy, making them the single largest employer in the city. Corpus Christi Army Depot, located on NAS Corpus Christi, is the largest helicopter repair facility in the world.
Corpus Christi is the original home of the headquarters of Whataburger, a fast food restaurant operator and franchiser with 650 stores in ten states and Mexico; however, the company relocated its headquarters to San Antonio in 2009. Other large employers include CHRISTUS Spohn Health System at 5,400 local employees, the Corpus Christi Independent School District with 5,178, H-E-B at 5,000, and Bay Ltd. at 2,100. Other companies based in Corpus Christi include Stripes Convenience Stores and AEP Texas.
Corpus Christi became the first major city to offer city wide free wi-fi in order to allow remote meter reading after a meter reader was attacked by a dog. In 2007, the network was purchased by Earthlink for $5.5 million, and stopped being a free service on May 31, 2007.
Read more about this topic: Corpus Christi, Texas
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind—no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be—there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)