Jackson Free Press

After promising to employ more than 1,000 workers, Automatic Data Processing announced it will close its office in Clinton in February 2013.

The office is closing with an employment between 80 and 86 employees. In a press release, ADP stated it is providing "outplacement support services" to employees, who "have been encouraged to apply for open positions at other ADP facilities."

The office is one of three ADP "solution centers" where employees take client calls and do accounting functions for the Fortune 500 company. Next year, ADP will consolidate the services it offers from the Clinton office with the other solution centers, located in El Paso, Texas, and Augusta, Ga.

ADP released a statement about the closing, in which the company incorrectly wrote that the office is located in Jackson. Twice.

"ADP regularly conducts careful assessments of its operations to ensure we are operating in the most efficient manner. After thoughtful consideration, we will be consolidating some of our back-office administrative functions and closing our facility located in Jackson, Mississippi, effective February 22, 2013," the statement reads.

When this reporter brought the mistake to the attention of Michael Schneider, spokesman for ADP, he did not know the information was incorrect.

"The zip code of the municipality that that's located in is not Jackson?" Schneider asked.

ADP employs 57,000 nationwide and offers a range of payroll, human resources and employee benefit outsourcing services. Schneider, who referred most of the JFP's questions to ADP's less-than-100-word statement on the closing, would not say if the closing had anything to do with financial troubles at the company.

"It's an office consolidation. It's not necessarily driven by anything else," Schneider said. "We've issued our statement; outside of that, there isn't really that much to say. It's an office closing. It's a small office. Other than our statement, we don't really have anything else to add to it."

The company first opened in Clinton in 2008, with claims it would one day employ more than 1,000 people in the office, located in the South Pointe Business Park, the former home of WorldCom.

With the 1,000-employee claim, ADP could have taken advantage of incentives from the Mississippi Development Authority. The company's peak employment never got much higher than its current level, though, and therefore never qualified for any of the MDA assistance.

The lack of growth at the office was largely a result of the economic recession that peaked soon after ADP opened its doors in Clinton in 2008, Hinds County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Blake Wallace told the JFP. A large portion of ADP's business comes from providing technology and software resources to 25,500 auto dealers, a sector that suffered especially hard declines in business starting in 2008.

The Clinton office was the last of the three solution centers ADP opened. The other two had time to get up and running at a higher capacity before the recession hit, but the one in Clinton did not.

"They were never, ever really able to gain the momentum to increase employment here," Wallace said.

The office is not closing due to a lack of income for ADP, though. The company reported an 8 percent increase in revenues in fiscal year 2012, up to $10.7 billion. In 2011, Fortune magazine ranked ADP No. 269 its 500 largest corporations in the U.S. list. That year, the company saw a 10.4-percent increase in revenues to $9.879 billion.

Clinton Mayor Rosemary Aultman said she doesn't think the closing will have a big impact on the city's job market.

"ADP came in with quite a flash, and it never lived up to the hype that they had," Aultman said. "Losing 80 jobs is losing 80 jobs, and you never want anybody to lose their job."