Austin might not have been among the winners of Amazon's splashy competition for a new corporate campus, but the city's incentive agreement with a another global technology heavyweight has been quietly churning ahead.

Apple Inc. recently collected a combined $2.84 million in 2018 incentive payments from the city and Travis County, under a deal to develop its 38-acre Americas Operations Center at West Parmer Lane and Delcour Drive in North Austin. It's unclear if Apple has received an incentive payment from the state for 2018 yet because the Texas Enterprise Fund's public database hasn't been updated for November.

Regardless, hiring and investment by Apple are well ahead of the schedules agreed to in 2012, when city, county and state leaders pledged an estimated total of about $36 million in taxpayer-funded incentives to lure the project here.

The Parmer campus employed 2,852 people at the end of 2017 who were hired to full-time positions since early 2012, according to city documents, 670 more than than at the end of 2016.

The company's incentive agreement with the city only calls for it to have added 600 new jobs at the campus by the end of last year and to have maintained a workforce of 3,100 pre-existing jobs, including contractors, but not counting employees at its retail stores.

Under those criteria, Apple's head count in Austin at the end of 2017 was pegged at 5,819, according to the city -- well above the requirement and up about 9 percent from 5,358 at the close of 2016.

Apple currently puts its total employment in Austin at about 7,000, including new hires at the Parmer campus, employees at its other Austin facilities, retail workers at its local stores and contractors. The company has said Austin is its second-largest hub after its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

In addition, Apple already has invested at least $282.5 million in the seven-building campus, which was completed two years ago, even though it had until the end of 2021 to do so.

Mike Rollins, president of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, called Apple an exemplary company and said its burgeoning North Austin campus is evidence of the impact tax incentives can have in seeding economic development.

Such incentives "are a crucial deal-closing tool that has helped us be a leading job creator in the country over the past 15 years," Rollins said in an e-mailed response to questions. "They play an important role in helping businesses relocate or expand in the Austin region, and the jobs created and salaries being paid across all skill levels help more Austinites earn a living and provide for their families."

But Nathan Jensen, a University of Texas government professor who studies tax incentives, said Apple likely is being paid by the public for a project it was going to undertake anyway. He said research has shown that the bulk of incentives go to companies that would have invested in a region regardless -- especially when it comes to expansions, such as Apple's Austin project.

Apple has had a presence in the city since 1992. All told, the company has received about $21.6 million so far in incentives for its Parmer campus paid for by local and state taxpayers -- including $15.75 million of $21 million pledged from the Texas Enterprise Fund.

"Apple is booming, so there is no doubt that they complied with (the incentive agreement on hiring and investment) -- it’s just a question if they needed the agreement to boom," Jensen said. "From everything we know of the academic literature (on tax incentives), it was highly likely they were (expanding in Austin) anyway."

The estimated $36 million in total incentives earmarked for Austin's Apple project pales in comparison to packages pledged by the two recent winners of Amazon's high-profile, year-long sweepstakes to pick locations for its new corporate campuses. New York pledged $1.7 billion in performance-based incentives for the project, according to Amazon, and Virginia pledged about $573 million, and each will get about 25,000 Amazon jobs and billions of dollars in investment.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on Apple's incentive agreement for its North Austin campus or on its long-term plans in Austin.

Apple is required under its agreement with Austin to have a cumulative total of 3,635 new hires at the Parmer facility by the close of 2025, as well as to maintain the 3,100 pre-existing jobs.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who visited the new Austin campus last year, told the American-Statesman at the time that the company aims to continue expanding in the city.

"Literally, many, many pieces of our company are here," Cook said. "The team here is a very critical part of our company, and we've been very happy here. Over the years, during hard times and great times and all times, we have always wanted to grow here, and we want to continue to grow here."