19July 2019

The State Farm Mutual Car Insurance Co. is closing its Michelson Drive center in Irvinein August and laying off 156 employees. In a June 26 Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification sent to the state Work Development Department, Employee Relations Manager Beth Stuckey stated the layoffs will take place Aug. 31 and are expected to be irreversible.”The whole center will be closed as a result of this action,”Stuckey stated.”No bumping rights exist for employees.” “Bumping “is the right of a senior employee to change a less senior employee in a job for which both are qualified.
None of the impacted employees in Irvine are represented by a union, Stuckey stated. 2 regional workplaces will be impacted The closure
will impact 2 workplaces– one at 3351 Michelson Drive, Suite 200, and another at 3337 Michelson Dr., Suites 300, 410, 415, 450, 650, 680 and 730. Layoffs at 3351 Michelson Drive will impact 141 employees who deal in injury and home claims
and a host of other locations. The staying 15
employees at 3337 Michelson Drive consist of a market analyst, a marketing supervisor, numerous claim professionals and a compliance analyst, to name a few positions. State Farm spokesman Sevag Sarkissian stated the company will still have a handful of employees in the location in the form of mobile employees and telecommuters and”will continue to have a strong existence in the community through its agent partners and employee.””We would not be where we are today if it were not for our employees and representatives and
that is why we work to assist them throughout any change,”Sarkissian stated through e-mail. He didn’t elaborate on what type of resources State Farm might provide to displaced employees or whether they might be positioned at other State Farm workplaces. A bigger wave of closures A May 4, 2017 report from trade publication InsuranceJournal.com stated State Farm was planning to shutter 11 U.S. centers and displace about 4,200 employees in the wake of a$7 billion yearly underwriting loss on car insurance policies the previous year. The insurer was poised to leave Parsippany, N.J. and Petaluma in 2018 and the other locations by 2021, the publication stated.