MetLife: And another CA company bites the dust

March 8, 2013

By John Seiler

California’s high-tax, excessive regulation climate has killed another state business and the jobs that go with it:

“Insurance giant Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. said Thursday it will move 2,600 jobs from offices in five eastern states and California to lower-cost locations in two North Carolina cities, while also getting tax breaks and other incentives that could reach $100 million.

“The insurer is shifting the jobs from Aliso Viejo and Irvine in California, and from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, MetLife spokesman John Calagna said. The positions will be consolidated in Charlotte, which will become the U.S. headquarters for MetLife’s retail business, and at a global technology and operations hub in the Raleigh suburb of Cary. The company’s retail segment sells and services life, disability, auto and other insurance.”

The other exodus states also are high-cost, high-tax, high-regulation, union-dominated states — but with worse weather than Taxifornia.

“The new jobs, paying average salaries of nearly $82,000 a year, would include product management, marketing, sales and customer support in Charlotte and information technology positions in Cary. The company had about 140 workers in Charlotte before Thursday’s announcement.”

Those high-paying, middle-class jobs will no longer be in California. And the people holding those jobs no longer will be paying income, sales, property and other taxes here.