Chicago Loses Hundreds of HQ Jobs

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

From Allstate, CME Group and McDonald's to Motorola Mobility and Walgreens Boots Alliance, it's hard to think of a big company in metro Chicago that's not cutting head office staff.

Corporate headquarters operations that created good jobs for generations of Chicagoans have turned into drivers of unemployment in recent years. Total headcount at Chicago's 10 biggest companies fell 5.6 percent last year. And data from Chicago outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas show big, locally based companies contributing an outsized share of nearly 90,000 layoffs in Illinois since 2013.

Kraft Heinz joined the parade on Aug. 12, cutting 700 of its 1,900 employees in Northfield before moving the remaining headquarters staff to downtown Chicago. Motorola Mobility followed the next day, wiping out 500 jobs, or 25 percent of its city workforce.

It's a troubling turn of events for a region that sells itself as an ideal base for global companies. The strategy worked well for decades, as Chicago's central location and transportation connections helped spawn giants in industries such as consumer packaged goods, finance, manufacturing and retailing.

Even after many factory jobs were sent to low-cost locales, company headquarters kept hiring well-paid managers and professionals. Accountants and product managers, IT supervisors and in-house lawyers earned salaries that funded mortgage payments, orthodontist bills and college tuition.


Now those jobs are going away as corporate Chicago finds itself on the wrong side of three big trends roiling the economy: slow growth in mature industries, the rise of activist investors, and a new business philosophy of attacking corporate overhead, aka staff jobs.

The struggles of Blue America.