Premier Steven Marshall announces LVX Global’s HQ at Lot Fourteen

Premier Steven Marshall is announcing another tech firm for Lot Fourteen – the latest salvo in a pre-election battle over jobs.

Premier Steven Marshall will unveil another international tech firm setting up headquarters at Lot Fourteen on Thursday, as he braces for a fresh round of damaging unemployment figures.

Technology solutions firm LVX Global will move its headquarters back to Adelaide from Perth, bringing 20 jobs into the soon-to-be-completed Bice Building at Lot Fourteen – the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

Mr Marshall hailed LVX Global’s return to Adelaide, where the firm was formed 30 years ago, as “another triumph for South Australia” because investment attraction was “a key tenet of our ongoing strategy”.

Tech firm LVX Global is setting up headquarters at Lot Fourteen. Josh May (LVX chairman), Premier Steven Marshall and LVX’s Corey Gray and Di Dixon at the site. Pic Roy VanDerVegt

“We’re excited that this is another step towards providing companies with the opportunity for co-location with like-minded business and hi-tech industry cluster collaboration at Lot Fourteen,” he said.

Unemployment figures for April are released today, with SA having had three successive months of the nation’s highest jobless rate in the previous releases. Labor is trying to destroy Mr Marshall’s economic credentials ahead of next March’s election by hammering him over the economy, including through a letterboxed leaflet citing figures showing SA has been the only state to have fewer jobs now – 10,500 gone – than when the pandemic struck.

Mr Marshall has countered with figures showing SA has regularly led the nation in payroll jobs and wages growth since last March.

Lot Fourteen is the centrepiece of Mr Marshall’s plan to transform the state economy by boosting jobs in nine priority sectors, including tech, space and defence.

In April, Mr Marshall announced Google would set up an Adelaide base at Lot Fourteen. It was the third global technology services firm to commit to Adelaide in seven months, following fellow tech giant Amazon opening an office at Lot Fourteen in February. Amazon has plans to create 50 jobs by 2024.

SA’s unemployment rate for March was 6.3 per cent, down from 6.8 per cent in the previous month.

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas said he hoped the jobless figures improved because human stories were behind the numbers.

“Imagine if you were a parent in that circumstance, who’s just lost that job, and asking yourself how you’re going to look after your family and your children – I can’t think of anything more harrowing,” he said.

Asked how Labor would tackle unemployment, Mr Malinauskas cited his $593m plan to build a hydrogen-fired power station to cut energy bills and create thousands of jobs.