Packard Bell to Move 25% of Chatsworth Jobs to Utah
Packard Bell, the Chatsworth-based computer manufacturer whose efforts to relocate have become the focus of a drive to retain California jobs, said Monday it would move almost a quarter of its jobs to Utah.
The company’s service and support units, which include about 420 of the firm’s 1,500 employees, will move to a facility outside Salt Lake City, the company announced.
“Most of these employees are being offered the opportunity to relocate to Utah,” the company said in a news release. About 50 of the support employees will remain temporarily at its Chatsworth facility until the remainder of the company relocates, company officials said.
The company, the fourth-largest home computer manufacturer in the United States, is negotiating for a new location with several communities in the Western United States. The leading California contender, said company executives, is Palmdale in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles.
High-level state, county and city officials have gotten involved in the campaign to keep the company--which executives say has outgrown its San Fernando Valley facility and needs to move to expand--in economically troubled California.
A decision on moving the remainder of Packard Bell will not come “for a few weeks, at least,” said Liz O’Donnell, a company spokeswoman.
Palmdale has attempted to lure the firm with an offer of 50 acres of developed land, worth an estimated $7.5 million, and the proceeds from a $10-million bond issue.
Gov. Pete Wilson has urged the Legislature to pass a bill designating Palmdale an enterprise zone, which would give Packard Bell a $19,000 tax credit over five years for every employee hired.
Los Angeles County officials have offered the company $12,500 in annual property-tax breaks, the maximum allowed under state law, if Palmdale wins out.
But there has been plenty of competition from cities outside the state, notably from Portland, Ore., and Salt Lake City.
