Reebok to move more jobs to South Carolina from Canton

About 100 Reebok employees at the company's corporate headquarters in Canton could lose their jobs now that Reebok's corporate parent plans to move more of its operations to South Carolina.

The jobs will head south in April, when parent company Adidas Group is scheduled to shift Reebok's customer service, credit and collections, accounts receivable and customer compliance departments to Spartanburg, S.C.

Adidas already has a distribution center in that town, and is building a new $150 million distribution center there that will be complete in 2009.

Similar tasks are already being performed by Adidas employees there, said David Kahan, senior vice president of sales for Reebok USA.

Kahan said he is not aware of any other service functions scheduled for relocation from Massachusetts to the Spartanburg facility.

The affected employees, who were notified on Wednesday of the decision, will be given a chance to apply for jobs in the new Spartanburg facility or the company's other locations, Kahan said. Those that do not remain within the company will be offered severance packages that include job transition assistance, he said.

The roughly 100 jobs departing Canton come in addition to 230 warehouse positions from Stoughton and Norwood that Reebok will transfer to South Carolina in 2009 when the new distribution center opens.

Those employees were also given the option of relocating to South Carolina or taking a severance package.

In addition to the cost savings Adidas expects by consolidating its services, the company also stands to gain a $3,500 tax credit from the Spartanburg County Council for each job created at the new warehouse and distribution center.

The new complex, to be built next to the existing Adidas Group distribution center, is expected to eventually create nearly 1,200 jobs in the Spartanburg, S.C., area.

Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, Adidas has more than 28,000 employees worldwide. Reebok has about 1,400 employees in Canton, and 1,600 in Massachusetts. Even with the job relocations, the company said it has increased the number of employees it has in Massachusetts and in Canton since Adidas' $3.8 billion acquisition of Reebok in January 2006.

Andrew Lightman of The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.) may be reached at alightman@ledger.com.