Connell responded to Dow Jones's questions after the service followed my reports that leading employment website CareerBuilder had laid off more than 300 employees -- and possibly as many as 400 -- at its Chicago headquarters on Friday. Those cuts came just two months after the company got a $2.9 million tax break from the city of Chicago to enlarge its headquarters there. Majority-owned by Gannett, CareerBuilder had promised to add 185 jobs as part of the expansion.Connell and other Gannett officials rarely communicate with Gannett Blog. Now, call me crazy, but isn't Connell -- a former USA Today managing editor -- confirming what I wrote? The distinction she seems to be drawing is that everyone does this, so it's misleading for me to suggest this is news. (Trust me: Anytime a publicist tells a reporter that something "isn't news" -- it almost always is.)
'No information' about layoffs
Asked today about any layoffs, a CareerBuilder spokesperson told Dow Jones: "I have no information."
The Dow Jones stories are not online, so I cannot link to them. CareerBuilder has not returned my calls seeking more information. I'm also still waiting for a response from Chicago's Department of Planning and Development; it granted the tax giveaway in early October. With these layoffs, however, it's unclear whether CareerBuilder has lost the tax break. The company had threatened to leave Chicago without the public money.
As I noted yesterday, this is at least the second time a Gannett business has won a tax break for creating jobs in one city, while reducing jobs elsewhere.
A tale of two rooms
How Friday's mass layoff went down, according to recruitment blog Cheezhead: "Certain groups were alerted via e-mail at 12:50 p.m. CT that at 1 p.m. they were to go to a conference. Those going to one room were safe, while those in the other were cut."
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If this is common like she said, could someone in Illinois please let us know what Gannett got (training grants, abatements, etc.) or requested for the shared service center.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
OOPs. I meant Missouri. sorry.
ReplyDeleteThis happens every day. Michigan has a big promotion, with the actor (Dumb and Dumber one) espousing the benefits of moving your company there and getting tax breaks for the move. BMW got huge tax breaks by moving to South Carolina, etc. etc. Sound financial management on the part of Gannett it seems.
ReplyDeleteI personally dislike it when local governments offer tax breaks(Fairfax, VA provided them to Gannett for moving HQ to tysons).
ReplyDeleteBUT - it is common practice and perfectly legal. A business shouldn't be criticized for utilizing government policy.
You won't get a response out of careerbuilder. They have a policy to never comment on anything negative about the company. They just delete the voice mails.
ReplyDeleteThey know that not responding makes the bad stories go away faster because people have nothing new to write about.
I commend you for looking into the $2.9 million dollar tax break they got from Chicago when they didn't fulfill the requirement of adding new jobs as promised. Since Chicago has budget problems of it's own I think that tax break should be taken back by the city and stopped now.
Also, they have multiple $2.9 million dollar super bowl ads being produced right now and many people are upset that they chose flamboyant brand advertising over workers in a time when job seeker traffic is rising from all the unemployed already looking for jobs online.
They say it is to reach hiring managers too, but the truth is hiring managers won't need to buy job postings after seeing a weird ad on the superbowl. Nobody is hiring at all right now, this is like flushing cash down the drain.
I'm not sure the government's policies of offering tax breaks is the issue here. That happens, and its allowed. So be it.
ReplyDeleteThe real issue, I think, is oversight and compliance. Companies agree to do something in exchange for getting the breaks, don't they?
So the real issue becomes this: Who is watching out and letting us (taxpayers) know if companies fulfilled their end of the bargain?
Thanks to Jim for shedding light on the CareerBuilder situation in Chicago. Maybe USAT could follow that lead and do one of those spiffy interactive maps so we'll all know who's getting the breaks, how much they got and for how long. That's news people can use.
Oh. Maybe USAT or someone could let us know which of the companies getting breaks are, at the same time, sending jobs out of the US too.