Loss of Kinko’s Seen as ‘Huge’ Blow to Ventura

Calling it a “major defection” of a large employer, economists said Tuesday that Kinko’s decision to move its corporate headquarters from Ventura to Texas could mean a serious blow to the local economy.

“This is bringing the recession home,” said Bill Watkins, director of the UCSB Economic Forecast. “For a city the size of Ventura, it’s huge.”

But Ventura’s political leaders say they must first focus on helping the 100 employees who lost their jobs Tuesday find new work and recruiting new businesses to the city. At least 600 additional Kinko’s employees will either be relocated or lose their jobs by the end of 2003.

“The focus can’t be ‘woe is us,’ ” said Mayor Sandy Smith, adding that the city has formed a committee to aid those out of work. “We have some citizens without jobs, and we need to fill that void with another business--one that wants to be here.”

Kinko’s Inc., with headquarters near the oil fields off Ventura Avenue for 13 years, announced Tuesday plans to cut 350 corporate jobs nationwide--100 of them in Ventura County--and move its plant to an undecided location in north Texas.

The company’s accounting and technology departments will remain “for the foreseeable future” at the facility on Stanley Avenue, with about 300 employees, said company spokeswoman Maggie Thill. Beginning in January, the remaining 600 employees in Ventura are expected to gradually be moved to the new corporate headquarters during the next two years.

A desire for a more central location in the country and a much lower cost of doing business, including lower taxes and travel expenses, were cited as reasons for the move.

“Obviously, it was a very difficult decision and one not taken lightly,” Thill said.

Kinko’s is the city’s third-largest private employer, behind State Farm Insurance and Community Memorial Hospital, Watkins said, and the 17th largest employer in the county. Kinko’s was also the fifth most significant job creator in the county last year, he said.

The corporate relocation could mean weaker housing prices in western Ventura County and hurt retail sales in Ventura and Oxnard, economists said. They also said the decision to abandon this region is symbolic, and could signal other departures as the cost of doing business in Ventura County continues to increase.

“It’s the first major defection from a large company that we have seen in Ventura County since the early 1990s,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the Center for Regional Economic Research in Santa Barbara. “They’ve made a choice out of Ventura County, and they are the first in perhaps many to come.”

City officials, however, say they do not believe the Kinko’s move suggests a disturbing trend.

Though they did their best to keep Kinko’s in Ventura County, it was clear, local officials said, that they could not have done anything to change the company’s plans.

“I can’t move Ventura to the middle of the country,” said Susan Daluddung, the city’s community development director. “And I wouldn’t want to.”

Kinko’s executives agreed, saying the city made a “valiant effort” to retain the headquarters.

“I certainly understand how the local community is upset by our decisions,” said president and chief executive Gary Kusin, a Texas native with business and family ties in Dallas. “But we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the company.”

City Councilman Brian Brennan called the decision to move a “slap in the face” to the more than 1,000 employees locally who helped develop the company into an international copying and business services giant.

He said Kinko’s employees described the mood at work Tuesday as “very disappointing,” and that many believed “they weren’t told the whole story.” Brennan said many workers were scrambling to send out resumes in search of new jobs to keep from leaving Ventura County.

Many employees declined to comment about Tuesday’s announcement.

One employee, who said she was one of the 300 who would remain, said she was relieved to hear she would keep her job after weeks of rumors about layoffs.

“Most people are saying, ‘I’m not moving to Texas,’ ” she said.

Another woman walked out of the Kinko’s building into the parking lot toward her car. A friend helped by carrying a plant.

Not wanting to talk, the woman, with a sigh, said: “It’s hard enough.”

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Times staff writers Matt Surman and Margaret Talev contributed to this report.