DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- NCR Corp. is relocating its corporate headquarters to Georgia, angering Ohio officials who accused the maker of ATMs and retail checkout scanners NCR of not giving the state a chance to compete for the headquarters.
NCR said some of the roughly 1,250 workers at its current headquarters in Dayton will be offered transfers when the company moves to Duluth, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. NCR said it chose the new location after considering available work force, infrastructure, financial incentives and government tax structures.
Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said NCR never told state and local officials what it needed to stay and grow in Dayton despite numerous efforts to reach out to the company. He said Ohio offered NCR $31.1 million in tax credits and grants in the last 48 hours to stay in Ohio, but that the amount was just a guess because the state could get no response from the company.
NCR is eligible for several tax credits and incentives in Georgia, but state officials did not immediately have a price tag on what the total package would be worth. Messages seeking comment were left with NCR.
NCR Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Nuti said the company's large presence in Georgia -- combined with Atlanta's "great logistics and infrastructure" -- sealed the deal.
"We already had a larger infrastructure and more employees in Georgia than we had in Dayton," Nuti said Tuesday.
About 2,800 NCR employees currently work in the metro Atlanta area while about 1,300 work in Dayton. NCR's retail business is already based in Duluth.
The company says it will also establish a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Columbus, Ga., that will employ an additional 870 people over the next five years.
NCR spokesman Richard Maton says the move will begin in July and be complete by the end of 2010. He says the company's headquarters building in Dayton will be put up for sale.
Maton says NCR will continue to maintain an operation in Dayton that will include its data center and support for local customers. He does not know how many employees that will involve nor how many employees will be offered transfers to the new headquarters.
The Dayton area has lost thousands of auto-related jobs, including 2,000 in December when General Motors Corp. closed its SUV plant in suburban Moraine. In addition, thousands of jobs have disappeared from nearby Wilmington as cargo carrier DHL Express prepares to pull out of the area.
"In a way, it's just another negative event for the region, another notable job loss that's hit the area," said Tom Traynor, professor of economics at Wright State University.
"This is a job loss that's essentially in addition to that because it's just a company moving activity," Traynor said of NCR. "That's why it's sort of an extra hit to the area. Most of these jobs would have survived the recession."
NCR was founded in 1884 as National Cash Register Co. It employs about 22,000 workers worldwide.
Associated Press Writers Shannon McCaffrey and Dionne Walker in Atlanta contributed to this report.