Business Moves

Nationwide Mutual Insurance

Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. on April 3 laid off 480 employees and contractors across the country, a spokesman said.

Nationwide has eliminated about 3,000 jobs nationally in the past two years. The company lost $342 million last year as the industry dealt with claims from an unusually high number of hurricanes and a drop in investment returns.

“We haven’t made it a secret that we’ve been looking at targeted work force changes to make us more efficient,” Nationwide spokesman Eric Hardgrove said.

The cuts were in the Nationwide’s information technology group and included 230 employees, with about 150 of those in central Ohio. About 250 of the 480 people laid off were third-party contractors, Hardgrove said.

Those affected received an additional 60 days of pay in their severance packages, as well as assistance in finding a new job, Hardgrove said. They’ll also be eligible for some of the positions open in some of the insurance and financial services company’s other businesses, he said.

When Jerry Jurgensen stepped down as CEO in February, he said he believed Nationwide had “avoided the worst of the problems that have bedeviled the financial sector.”

The moves were made as Labor Department data showed the nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since late 1983. The news also came several days after Dublin-based Cardinal Health Inc. — one of central Ohio’s other major employers — said it would eliminate 1,300 jobs from its clinical and medical products unit.

Jurgensen had served as Nationwide’s CEO since 2000. He was replaced by President and Chief Operating Officer Steve Rasmussen, who warned in February that additional job reductions were possible.

Hardgrove wouldn’t say whether more layoffs would come from the company’s ongoing cost-cutting initiative. “If other plans arise, we would communicate that to our associates first,” he said.

The company has about 35,000 employees, including about 11,000 in central Ohio.

DBH Resources, Wrapid Specialty Inc.

Los Angeles-based DBH Resources has evolved into Wrapid, a company that provides wrap-ups to the construction industry. Construction wrap-up expert Andrew Canning is chief operating officer of the re-branded firm. Wrapid’s mission is to protect projects and the people who work on them.

President and CEO George Dale and Senior Vice President Heidi Butzine will continue the legacy of support provided by the firm and welcome the launch of Wrapid.

Topics Ohio