NORTHERN KENTUCKY — General Electric is splitting its health care and energy businesses into separate companies in 2023 and 2024 respectively, leaving General Electric itself as an aviation-focused company.  

What You Need To Know

  • GE is splitting into three public companies

  • Aviation, which is based in the Cincinnati area, will become GE’s main focus

  • While GE Aviation was hit hard by the pandemic, one economist says she thinks it will bounce back

  • The company is not planning on moving the headquarters as of right now

In a statement, a GE spokesperson said, “While it’s early in the process, we are optimistic about GE Aviation, which will form the core of the aviation-focused GE of the future.”

Northern Kentucky University economist Janet Harrah said the move could be huge for Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, particularly if the company continues to have its headquarters in the region.

“The jobs aren’t going away. The manufacturing plant is still there,” Harrah said. “What could be different, if this becomes a headquarters, as opposed to just a regional headquarters, is that you will start to get the higher wage, back office to CEOs, the CFO, COO, those jobs will start to fill in Cincinnati. What we have seen in other communities once you get the headquarter designation, and you start hiring that level of executive, typically what happens is, first of all, all the decisions are made locally. They’re not made somewhere else. Second, those people tend to be high givers. They support the local arts programs, the local charities. Local charitable giving tends to go up. And those same CEO, higher level executives will start to fill out the boards and the advisory boards of local institutions. So there’s lots of good things that come from having a headquarters firm.”

GE Aviation is one of the largest manufacturers of jet aircraft engines in the world, though the company was hit hard by travel restrictions in 2020.

Harrah said she envisions the company bouncing back in a big way.

“Once the pandemic is truly over, people are going to want to start traveling again. Because a lot of people won’t have traveled anywhere of any significance for two or three years by the time the pandemic is fully over. So I think there will be a lot of penned up demand that’s going to increase the demand for air travel, which in turn will increase the demand for aircraft and engines,” Harrah said.

Automotive and aircraft parts manufacturing have long been staples of the Cincinnati metro area. Now coupled with the rise in the logistics industry with Amazon and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), and all of warehousing going on around CVG, Harrah said there’s a lot of positive momentum in the region.

“Taken together, those three industries are going to continue to drive I think the overall Cincinnati market for at least the next couple of decades,” she said.

Spectrum News 1 asked GE if Evendale, Ohio will continue to be the company’s headquarters. A spokesperson said the changes will take time to work through, and that nothing is changing at this time. 

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