The region's economic development initiative Opportunity Austin has already surpassed its goal of creating 72,000 jobs by the end 2008--two full years ahead of schedule.

 Last year employers generated 33,100 new jobs in the metropolitan area through expansions and relocations, with a payroll totaling $1.4 billion, according to figures released today by Opportunity Austin. In the first three years of the program, 80,900 new jobs were established with a payroll totaling $2.9 billion.

In 2006, 36 companies announced plans to relocate facilities to the Austin market, with many coming from other parts of Texas and from California. Most of those relocations were for corporate headquarters and regional offices.

So far through Opportunity Austin, the city has granted $85 million in expansion and relocation incentives. Those incentives have led to 7,100 new jobs from nine different corporations.

Despite the area's overwhelming economic development success, Austin is still facing a serious crisis when it comes to transportation, says Gary Farmer, the group's 2006 chairman and one of its original organizers. Reports suggest Austin has become the most congested city of its size in the nation. And with the growing population putting 70 new automobiles on the road every day, the problem is only going to get worse without a solution, Farmer says. Opportunity Austin has funded an education initiative called "Take on Traffic" to help find solutions to the problem.

"We cannot wait on the state or federal government to solve this problem," Farmer told Opportunity Austin investors Wednesday morning. "It's up to us to change this."

Mayor Will Wynn told the group that he's proud of what Austin has accomplished, but echoed Farmer's comments that the city cannot rest on its laurels. Austin's is the fastest growing economy in Texas and one of the fastest in the nation in large part because people want to live here.

"People are coming to Austin, and they're coming with or without jobs," Wynn says.

Companies that added a significant number of new jobs in Austin in 2006 include IBM (330 jobs), TECO-Westinghouse Motor Co. (150 in coming years), Dimensional Fund Advisors (800 over 10 years), PRC (500), Hewlett-Packard (280), Samsung (900) and Reznik Group (150).

In the first three months of 2007, gaming company Blizzard Entertainment out of Irvine, Calif. has established new operations in the area that will eventually employ 500 people. And Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bank has announced plans for an office that will employ 300 people.

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce launched Opportunity Austin in 2004 with specific goals for job creation in the region.

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