MetLife Buy of Travelers to Cost 600 Jobs
MetLife Inc., one of the nation's largest insurers, revealed that it will cut 600 jobs within a year as part of its takeover of Travelers Life and Annuity.
One hundred positions will be eliminated immediately and 500 others will be cut in the coming months, the company said. The majority of workers who will be affected are in Hartford, said MetLife spokesman John Calagna.
"These numbers are based on MetLife making a business decision on how best to run these two businesses while at the same time being sensitive to the jobs situation in Hartford,'' he said.
MetLife agreed in January to pay $11.5 billion to Citigroup Inc. for Travelers Life & Annuity and substantially all of Citigroup's international insurance businesses.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and others have pressured the New York-based insurer in the last few weeks to minimize the job loss among the 2,000 Travelers employees in Connecticut.
Rell said while the company is cutting fewer jobs than had been rumored, there are still too many. "And some of the jobs that are disappearing are important ones — jobs that are hard to come by, and jobs that we want to keep in Connecticut,'' she said in a written statement.
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