Transamerica Move Makes ’93 a Record for Job Losses : Economy: With next spring’s departure of the Warner Center tenant, Woodland Hills will especially feel the pinch.
Transamerica Insurance Group’s planned move to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, detailed by the Woodland Hills company last week, was a milestone of sorts.
It pushed the number of announced job losses in the San Fernando Valley to more than 10,000 over the past three years, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
Of that total, more than 2,000 job losses have been announced just since January. In addition to Transamerica, which is relocating about 1,000 Valley jobs out of state, two of the biggest moves are planned by R & G Sloane, a Sun Valley furniture maker that is transferring 325 jobs to Little Rock, Ark., and by Menasco Aerosystems, a Burbank aircraft-equipment maker. Menasco, a unit of Wilmington, Del.-based Coltec Holdings Inc., is taking 300 jobs to Dallas-Ft. Worth.
On the other hand, Valley companies have announced they were adding just 1,500 new jobs since 1990, many of them at small, start-up companies, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., a private not-for-profit business association. So far this year, the association has only been able to identify one company in the San Fernando Valley that has added jobs--15 of them.
“The message we’ve been trying to get out to business is if you’re thinking of leaving, don’t wait until the problems just overwhelm you,” Kyser said. “Call us up, we’ll put together a team of people who can possibly solve your problems.” Among other things, the agency advises employers how to deal more effectively with workers’ compensation insurance problems.
Transamerica’s departure, set for next spring, will be especially painful for Woodland Hills. Besides costing the community jobs, it will hurt Warner Center, a business district where as much as 20% of the office space is already empty.
The company’s move, announced to employees last Tuesday, is the latest phase of a restructuring by the troubled property-casualty insurer, a unit of TIG Holdings of New York. TIG Holdings was spun off in April by its former parent, financial services giant Transamerica Corp., in an initial public stock offering.
Transamerica has not yet outlined for employees the specifics of its relocation program.
“We won’t have any news until we finalize our location in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex area,” Transamerica spokeswoman Cheryl Friedling said Monday.
Transamerica currently occupies about 200,000 square feet of office space in Warner Center’s Trillium West building at 6300 Canoga Ave. It also has an additional 60,000 square feet of offices at 6400 Canoga Ave.
CareAmerica Health Plans, a health maintenance organization with about 200,000 members that is owned by Burbank-based UniHealth, will sublease 160,000 square feet of Transamerica’s offices on six floors of the Trillium West building. CareAmerica currently has 400 employees scattered among four offices in Chatsworth.
Ross Goldberg, a spokesman for UniHealth, said CareAmerica could start moving to Warner Center as early as September. The sublease will allow CareAmerica to “consolidate operations and give it some room to grow.” It expires in 1998.
TIG Holdings has hired the Staubach Co. in Dallas, headed by former Dallas Cowboys’ star quarterback Roger Staubach, to sublease Transamerica’s remaining office space in Warner Center. Real estate sources have speculated that Litton Industries, which is moving its headquarters to the Valley from Beverly Hills, may be interested in space in Warner Center.
