Deutsche Bank halts plans for expansion in North Carolina
Proposed expansion was supposed to bring more than 250 high-paying jobs to North Carolina
Deutsche Bank has frozen plans to expand in North Carolina following the passage of an anti-LGBT law last month, becoming the latest business to express opposition to the new law.
The bank, which employs 900 people at its Cary, N.C., office in the Research Triangle area of the state, had originally planned to hire an additional 250 employees, but hit the brakes on the deal on Tuesday, citing the North Carolina law’s elimination of nondiscrimination protections as the reason for the halted expansion.
“We’re proud of our operations and employees in Cary and regret that as a result of this legislation we are unwilling to include North Carolina in our U.S. expansion plans for now,” John Cryan, co-chief executive of Deutsche, said in a statement. “We very much hope that we can revisit our plans to grow this location in the near future.”
According to The New York Times, the scuttled $9 million expansion was expected to bring high-paying jobs to the state, with an annual estimated payroll of more than $21 million plus benefits, or an average salary of $84,000 per year, significantly higher than Wake County’s average income of $50,702 a year. When Deutsche had initially announced its plans to expand last September, Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who signed the anti-LGBT bill into law, used the announcement to tout his record of job creation, noting that more than 237,100 private sector jobs had been created under his watch since taking office in 2013.
Tuesday’s announcement of the halted expansion comes on the heels of two other major companies halting or reconsidering plans for expansion in the Tar Heel State. Last week, electronic online payment firm PayPal announced it would not move forward with plans to bring nearly 400 jobs to the state due to the anti-LGBT law. That followed a similar announcement from the New Jersey-based Braeburn Pharmaceuticals, which announced it was “re-evaluating” its options in light of North Carolina’s decision to overturn local ordinances granting LGBT people various legal protections.
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