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Global manufacturer Jabil plans to hire hundreds of new workers at a Northern Kentucky facility.

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Global manufacturer Jabil plans to hire nearly 900 full-time workers at its manufacturing site in Northern Kentucky.

Jabil (NYSE: JBL), headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla., is hosting career open houses and on-the-spot interviews from Jan. 27-30 at the Hilton Cincinnati Airport at 7373 Turfway Road in Florence. The company plans to hire more than 900 full-time quality technicians, quality engineers, industrial engineers, test technicians, test engineers, diagnostic technicians, assistant production supervisors and trainers at its nearby manufacturing facility.

Jabil also seeks to fill assembler, operator and material handler positions at its Florence site. It is interviewing for those specific roles Jan. 27-30 at AeroTek Inc. at 600 Meijer Drive in Florence.

A Jabil spokesperson said that the hiring is due to increased customer demand. Pay for the new roles was not disclosed, but would vary by role and the applicant's experience level.

Jabil was founded in 1966 and is a Fortune 150 company with more than 140,000 employees across more than 100 facilities in 25 countries.

Jabil in December 2024 alerted Kentucky through a notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act that it was closing one of its three Florence facilities, laying off 108. A company spokesperson at that time said the location that was to be shuttered was one of three Jabil maintained in Florence, and the other two would remain in operation.

Jabil in 2018 received a $2 million tax incentive through the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority to open a new facility, its second at the time. The project included $9.7 million in rent and $3.8 million on building/improvements, and was to create 253 jobs with an average wage of $21 an hour.

The Florence facilities support work in cloud and data center infrastructure for Jabil. Jabil is involved in the design, engineering and manufacturing of electronic circuit board assemblies and systems. It also provides supply chain services, primarily serving equipment manufacturers.

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CINCINNATI —

Communities are outraged after finding hateful flyers scattered throughout neighborhoods on both sides of the Ohio River.

The flyers claiming to be from the KKK were distributed on Monday, which fell on Dr. Martin Luther King Day and Inauguration Day.

"It's horrifying," Zach Clark said.

"It's disconcerting," Gerardo Cruz said. "I never thought America was like this."

Cruz is one of the many who were left astonished after learning about the flyers. Decades ago, he moved to the United States from Puerto Rico. He originally lived in New York but has called the Greater Cincinnati area his home for nearly a decade.

In the aftermath of the flyers getting distributed in his Covington neighborhood, Cruz claimed his neighbors would not accept that type of hate speech.

"They're decent people," Cruz said. "I've been here for years. I know these people here, and they've accepted me as if I were one of their own. That's why I like Covington; they embraced me here."

The flyers depict hateful rhetoric. Two different flyers claiming to be from the KKK have been reported in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky in total.

"It is scary because it makes you feel like these people have been emboldened," Clark said.

One of the flyers focuses on immigration, saying in big letters, "Leave now...avoid deportation." That messaging showed up in communities the same day as the inauguration when there were conversations on the national level about mass deportations.

"The longer you look at the flyer, the more horrifying it gets," Clark said.

The other flyer targets Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and it appeared in neighborhoods on the day we honor the civil rights icon.

"It's like a slap in the face to his memory," Cruz said.

The flyers are showing up in dozens of communities, and people WLWT spoke with stress that wording is not welcome.

"We need to focus on being kind," Clark said.

Some places flyers were in Northern Kentucky include Covington, Ludlow, Fort Wright, and Bellevue. Across the river, they reported in neighborhoods in Cincinnati, such as Clifton and Northside.

Police departments are actively investigating.

Rumors that the Florida-based supermarket Publix was planning to move into Northern Kentucky have swirled around for years.

People knew someone who heard it from a lawmaker at a brunch. Or someone heard it from a neighbor who knew someone who heard it from a developer.

I can't responsibly report that because that's just not how journalism works.

But a fresh batch of rumors in the fall of 2023 got me looking around for public documents – any grocery store plans submitted in Boone, Kenton or Campbell counties.

That's how I learned about an approved site plan for a 55,701 square-foot grocery store near the high-end Triple Crown neighborhood in Boone County.

That's about the right size for a Publix. And the engineering and development companies affiliated with the plan – Ark Consulting Group LLC and C4 Investments LLC – have both worked on Publix stores.

Business reporter Alex Coolidge was able to confirm that site wouldn't be a Kroger.

So, we published a story letting our readers know exactly what we knew and didn't know about whether Publix was expanding into the Cincinnati market.

It turns out, our hunch about Publix was right. A few weeks later, Publix confirmed plans for its first store in the area.

Since then, Publix has been busy. In December, it announced plans for its fifth store in the area, which bumps the store's presence up to more than a dozen in the Bluegrass State.

Alex and I know that a new grocery store in Kroger's backyard is a really big deal.

In the Greater Cincinnati area, it takes a bite out of Kroger's profits, which represents a real impact on jobs and business.

We agreed that Publix needed a big story in The Enquirer – how the company has grown and why it's been able to amass a cult-like following among shoppers.

So we talked to Publix lovers, made a trip to Louisville to visit the first Publix in Kentucky, and became engrossed in all things Publix-related.

We ate the famous pub subs, fresh popcorn, and scoped out the adjacent liquor store.

Our verdict? Well, we're reporters. We'll never tell.

But our article has plenty of photos and details to help you decide whether you want to give Publix a try.