Posted on 04/29/2014 2:03:27 AM PDT by markomalley
The Japanese car maker Toyota Motor Corp. will shift most of its U.S. headquarters from California to Texas, according to several sources cited by Reuters and Bloomberg.
The move will occur over several years and affect several thousand of Toyota’s 5,300 sales and marketing employees in Torrance, Cal.
A location in Plano, Tex. is being eyed for the new facility, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Toyota sells 2.2 million vehicles a year in the U.S. and has manufacturing facilities in Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama and Indiana. The company opened its first facility in California in 1957 and its Torrance headquarters in 1982.
The move, expected to be announced Monday, could be the fruit of a campaign led by Texas Gov. Rick Perry who has sought to poach businesses from the Golden State.
Perry, who is serving his last term as governor but has eyes on a 2016 presidential bid, has traveled to California numerous times to tout the Lone Star State’s business-friendly climate.
“Building a business is tough,” said Perry in a television ad released last year, “but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible.”
In both 2012 and 2013, Texas was ranked the best state for business in a survey conducted by Chief Executive. California was ranked 50th.
Last year, CNBC ranked California 47th on the same measure while Texas was ranked 2nd.
Nissan, another Japanese automaker, left California for Tennessee in 2005. The company cited lower business costs as a major reason for the move. In recent years, Campbell Soup, Chevron, and Comcast have all shifted facilities and jobs from California to other states.
A debate has raged over whether a substantial number of California businesses are indeed fleeing for other states, especially Texas. A political element is at play given that California is considered a Democratic stronghold while Texas is mostly Republican.
In 2012, California lost 5.2 percent of its businesses, though it has been difficult to determine whether firms relocated or merely closed down.
What is clear is that more California citizens have relocated to Texas than the other way around. For every 100 Texans that move to California, 183 Californians have moved to Texas since 2005, according to a Forbes article last year.
The unemployment rate for Texas is 5.5 percent while California’s rate is 8.1 percent, according to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. average is 6.7 percent.
Update: In a press release Monday, Perry confirmed Toyota’s relocation plans. The automaker’s new headquarters will provide 4,000 Texas jobs upon completion and involve a capital investment of more than $300 million.
“Toyota understands that Texas’ employer-friendly combination of low taxes, fair courts, smart regulations and world-class workforce can help businesses of any size succeed and thrive,” said Perry in a statement.
The company was also lured by $40 million in funding that will be provided by the Texas Enterprise Fund. The Fund was created in 2003 to offer businesses incentives to set up shop in Texas.
I’m glad they’re not coming to NC. Five thousand Californians would tip my state back to blue :-)
They are moving over a 1000 jobs from northern Kentucky to Texas also .
They’re moving 5000 jobs to Texas, but not necessarily moving the 5000 Californians who currently hold those jobs.
Despite King Urkel, Texas is booming. In his final two years, expect the dipshit’s flying monkeys at EPA, BLM, etc. to do everything in their power to destroy Texas.
California’s a neighborhood going bad... smart groups will get out early...
>>They are moving over a 1000 jobs from northern Kentucky to Texas also .
The Cincinnati airport doesn’t have the flight schedule it once did. CVG was a big Delta hub. Then came the Northwest acquisition, which made their Detroit hub operations Delta’s. CVG was de-emphasized as a hub. If you are Toyota, suddenly those HQ folks in Cincy that need to travel are having to change planes a lot, which isn’t great. Moving them to Dallas, and the DFW flight schedule, makes that a non-issue.
The point being that bad government policy isn’t a factor in the KY move. And Toyota’s huge manufacturing operations in Georgetown KY aren’t going anywhere. They no long build cars in CA.
A friend out there who worked with them as clients says that in his experience, the Toyota CA folks couldn’t organize a dinner party among friends, let alone top notch auto industry operations. He has since moved on to doing work for several other high end marques.
The trick for Toyota is going to be in identifying the key players and incenting them to move, while leaving the deadwood behind.
I am sure the Eco greenies will have a celebratory drum circle over this
Bingo! There will probably be quite a number of people left behind and the key people will get relocated. While it’s just a guess on my part, I’m thinking that fewer than 1000 Californians will be moving to Texas and that the rest of the job openings will be filled by Texans.
Unfortunately, as soon as the republicans pass amnesty Texas will turn blue with all their illegals.
“...while leaving the deadwood behind.”
The Democratic Party members are too indoctrinated and dumbed-down to realize that it was their errors in ideology that caused the ruin of their state, and they continue in their atheistic socialist immorality in the states they escape to.
Here in Texas we give newly arrived businesses a special phone number that goes to the governor’s office. The businesses are told to use that number THE MOMENT some local regulator (or federal, for that matter) goes open-loop and starts to demand things out of their scope.
In California they tell you that since businesses don’t vote, they can go f-themselves when they have problems.
Title should be “says adios to California.”
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