Assurant to hire 100 more employees in Florence

FLORENCE — Assurant Specialty Property announced its Florence hazard insurance service center plans to hire as many as 100 additional employees during the next four to five months to accommodate the growth of its creditor-placed homeowners and insurance tracking business, according to a company press release.

Employment at Florence center, which moved to its 100,000-square-foot facility at 1323 Celebration Blvd. in 2003, now stands at slightly more than 700. It has about 40 open jobs in a variety of areas, including clerical, customer care, processing, and entry- and mid-level management.

Assurant Specialty Property is part of Assurant and is its largest business. It provides hazard and flood insurance tracking, escrow disbursement, loss draft tracking and other hazard insurance-related customer services to mortgage lenders and their customers. The company operates similar hazard insurance service centers in Duluth, Ga., Springfield, Ohio, and Santa Ana and Tustin, Calif.

Deborah Davis, vice president and service center manager, said Assurant Specialty Property is forecasting continued growth for business serviced by the Florence center.

“When we built the center in 2003, it was designed for about 750 employees,” she said in the release. “It is now configured to accommodate about 980, which means we are well positioned for growth.”

Davis said the Florence community and state of South Carolina have been very supportive of the company over the years.

“This support, plus the quality of the labor pool and competitive labor costs all contributed to our decision to build this center in the first place and to continue to expand the facility,” she said.

Job descriptions, and experience and education requirements for open positions at the Florence center can be found in the Careers section of www.assurantspecialtyproperty.com or at www.assurant.jobs.

The availability of these jobs comes at a critical time in the Pee Dee’s economy, as every county in the region had unemployment rates higher than the state average in October, according to a report release Friday by the S.C. Employment Security Commission. In Florence County alone, the unemployment rate increased from 7.5 percent during September to 8.2 percent in October.

On Sept. 18, Wellman Inc. announced plans to close its Johnsonville plant, as well as the Palmetto Plant in Darlington. More than 500 employees at the Palmetto Plant lost their jobs, as did 170 in Johnsonville. The company also cited Wall Street’s recent downturn as a major reason for the closings.

But in October, Wellman Plastics Recycling investors announced a plan to create 100 jobs, in addition to retaining the 163 employees at the Johnsonville plant. The investor group, led by J.H. Whitney & Co., planned to invest $3 million in the project.

In October, New Millennium Building Systems announced the closing of its plant in Florence. About 70 employees will lose their jobs when the plant discontinues its local operation Monday, said Chris Graham, general manager of the Florence and Lake City, Fla., plants.

And Wednesday, officials with JPMorgan Chase & Co., which acquired Washington Mutual in September, confirmed that 510 positions will be cut from Washington Mutual’s mortgage processing site in Florence, which employs 890 people. JPMorgan Chase spokeswoman Nancy Norris said the site will only employ 380 people by the end of 2009.

The economic news hasn’t been all bad, however, in 2008.

H.J. Heinz Co. announced June 3 it will bring 350 jobs to the Pee Dee to staff a new Florence County facility to expand its production of frozen meals, including the Weight Watchers Smart Ones and Boston Market product lines. The company will offer full- and part-time positions at a 225,000-square-foot facility, which is under construction on 49 acres in the Pee Dee Electric Cooperative’s Touchstone Energy Commerce City.

Monster, an online job recruitment and careers resource, also announced in late June it plans to invest $28 million and create 750 jobs over five years through its new customer service center in Florence. Officials from Monster and local dignitaries gathered Tuesday to break ground for the center at Pee Dee Electric Cooperative’s Touchstone Energy Commerce City.

Last month, QVC announced plans to hire 200 workers in Florence County, but also to lay off 900 elsewhere.

Michael George, the company’s president and CEO, said in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer the money saved from the cost-cutting measures could save the company nearly $40 million annually. Most of the layoffs will affect the distribution center in West Chester, Pa., where QVC is based.

Florence County’s QVC distribution center on TV Road officially opened July 11, 2007. In an interview the day after it opened, George said QVC would have 700 employees at the facility by the end of 2008, then 900 by the end of 2009.