Toyota confirms it will move 4,000 sales and marketing, corporate and manufacturing positions currently based in Torrance, CA, New York and Erlanger, KY, to Plano, TX.
“With our major North American business affiliates and leaders together in one location for the first time, we will be better equipped to speed decision making, share best practices, and leverage the combined strength of our employees,” Jim Lentz, CEO-Toyota’s North America region, says in a statement. “This, in turn, will strengthen our ability to put customers first and to continue making great products that exceed their expectations.”
Toyota says small groups of employees, reportedly executives, will move into rented space in Plano this summer. Toyota will construct a new headquarters in Plano set to open in late 2016 or early 2017, which is when the bulk of the transition will take place.
Breaking down the 4,000 figure, some 2,000 sales and marketing positions are being moved from Torrance to Plano, while 1,000 jobs at Toyota’s Engineering and Manufacturing North America unit in Erlanger are making the move.
About 1,000 Toyota Financial Services’ positions based in Torrance will shift to Plano in 2017, the automaker says.
Toyota also announces it will shift its entire purchasing operations from Erlanger, which is near Cincinnati, to a new facility in York Township, MI, where the automaker already maintains a technical center.
Toyota says after the California positions are relocated it will have roughly 2,300 employees left in the Golden State, which has been Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.’s home since 1957. Toyota’s Calty design center is expected to stay put in the state.
No word on how many employees Toyota expects to make the move to Texas.
When Nissan moved its sales and marketing operations in 2006, from Gardena, CA, to Nashville, TN, more than half of employees chose not to relocate, and some who did move to Tennessee eventually retreated back to California.
To soften the blow to the communities it is leaving behind, Toyota says it will make a $10 million philanthropic gift to California and Kentucky to fund local non-profits and community organizations in the two states for five years beginning in 2017.
