Allstate to create 2,250 jobs with North Carolina expansion

Allstate Insurance Co. announced on Wednesday plans to more than double its North Carolina workforce by expanding in the Charlotte area, investing more than $22 million and creating 2,250 new jobs by 2020.

Gov. Roy Cooper and leaders of the nation's largest publicly-traded personal insurance company were joined by local leaders in announcing the expansion, beginning in 2018, at the Charlotte Chamber office. Allstate listed a wide range of jobs to be filled, but a company official said they were still working on specifics.

"We're still putting the final touches on them,' said Harriet Harty, Allstate executive vice president for human resources. "But it will be a combination of new jobs, as well as what I would say current employees, so we're still putting the final touches on what those actual jobs are going to be. Let's just say there's no shortage of possibilities."

Harty said the company is looking at the talent market to see which are the best jobs to be located in Charlotte and making decisions accordingly. She also said the company will build a new office to handle the expansion, although she also suggested some of the new jobs would be located in its current site on the city's north side.

"I think that they wanted assurances that this workforce was going to continue to be viable and to be able to be expanded," Cooper said. "You need people who are well trained, and Allstate knew that they could get them here in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area."

Allstate already has a large call center in Charlotte. A state Department of Commerce document says Allstate chose the region for its expansion over places like Phoenix, Denver, Philadelphia and suburban Dallas. The document says Allstate will hire for a range of disciplines, including claims and actuarial services, product underwriting and customer service.

The expansion comes with potentially up to $23 million in local and state incentives. The company must meet job-creation, wage and investment requirements to receive the largest chunk of the incentives.

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Statehouse correspondent Gary Robertson contributed to this report from Raleigh.