Crossposted on Orange County Register
In 2011, 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state, 26% more than in 2010, according to Irvine business consultant Joe Vranich who has been tracking these departures since 2009.
Twenty-eight of these companies were in Orange County. Seven of them moved or expanded to Texas, three to Mexico, two to Washington and one each to 16 other states, said Vranich, who has changed the name of his business from The Relocation Coach to Spectrum Location Solutions, <http://www.spectrumlocationsolutions.com/> which helps companies define their goals, find new locations and coordinate the move.
The pace is accelerating, Vranich said. An average of 4.9 businesses left California each week of 2011, compared to 3.9 per week (202 total) in 2010 and one a week (51 total) in 2009.
In what he calls “disinvestment events,” Vranich counts companies that move jobs, facilities or headquarters out of California and “in carefully selected instances, companies making major capital investments in plants elsewhere that in the past would have been built in California,” Vranich said.
He doesn’t count companies that invest outside the state for growth or marketing reasons.
In this latest report, Vranich does not include a list of departing companies by name.
“Hassles arise when it becomes known that a company is going to move and politicians call to try to persuade them to change their mind. That includes calls from Gov. Brown’s office,” Vranich said. “In effect, I’ve added fuel to a fire that had started to simmer down. I don’t want to make life more difficult for other people in business so I’m no longer naming the companies.”
But based on news reports, here is a sampling of companies that moved partly or completely out of California in 2011:
Some are well known: Dunn-Edwards Paints in Vernon; and eBay Inc. in San Jose which will add 1,000 high-paying jobs in Austin, Texas, after receiving government incentives to locate there. The new owner of Claim Jumper and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurants moved the headquarters for both chains to Houston. Hyundai Capital America in Irvine transferred 71 jobs to Georgia and Texas.
In addition, Rockwell Collins in Irvine moved its electromechanical systems work to Mexico and Florida. Tickets.com in Costa Mesa closed its Concord office and moved the call center and customer service work to Texas. Wells Fargo Bank moved 59 jobs from Orange County to India.