This company promised Horry County 600+ jobs. It’s laying people off.

A Colorado-based business solutions provider praised by state officials as a “perfect fit” when it arrived in Horry County nearly a decade ago appears to have some rough edges.

Startek announced plans on May 17 to cut 161 jobs from its 50,000-square-foot site on Hinson Drive in Carolina Forest — the same day it informed Missouri leaders of plans to get rid of 472 jobs there because of a contract it lost with Charter Communications.

Company leaders said in late 2013 they planned to hire more than 600 people and make a $10 million investment and generate nearly four times that in annual economic impact.

“The company would have eligible to receive (local) incentives, but they never reached the job numbers and wages required,” Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation president Sandy Davis told The Sun News Dec. 27.

To date, no data is available to determine how close Startek has gotten to its goal.

The company did not immediately respond to a Sun News interview request, but a top economic development official said Startek, which employs more than 45,000 people globally, didn’t qualify for nearly $1 million worth of local incentives because it couldn’t meet employment or wage goals.

The exact number of Myrtle Beach employees isn’t known, and a phone number listed to its site was not working on Dec. 28.

But what is clear is that Startek was the only Horry County-based company in 2022 that filed a WARN Act notice with state employment officials.

Horry County Council chairman Johnny Gardner told The Sun News on Dec. 28 he wasn’t aware of Startek’s force reduction and wanted to gather more information before commenting at length.

“But 161 jobs lost. That would certainly not be the direction we want to go in,” he said.

Short for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, WARNs require companies with 100 more more full-time employees to provide advanced notice of at least 60 calendar days when layoffs are planned.

Davis said state employment officials notified her office of the pending job cuts.

“It has been typical all over the U.S. for call centers to have layoffs over the past two years with COVID,” she said.

Startek officials said in 2014 a fast-growing health care sector was expected to keep the Myrtle Beach site busy.

“We are focused on growing business within (the healthcare) industry segment and feel very positive about the long term future in Myrtle Beach,” spokeswoman Rosemany Hanratty wrote to a Sun News reporter in an October 2014 email.“We have made a significant investment in the area and intend on having a long and mutually beneficial relationship in the community.”

The company landed an incentive package typical of many Horry County projects — getting a property tax assessment of six percent locked in for 20 years. Terms of the deal based on Startek’s current situation were not immediately known.

It also had the chance to earn $750,000 through Davis’ organization, paid in two installments: The first when Startek had 200 employees and a second when it had 400, according to earlier Sun News reporting.

But that never happened, Davis said.

“The only thing the company received was a reduction in taxes based on the capital investment of the building,” Davis said. That’s a perk allowed by state law, but the reduction ended up with Waccamaw Management Co., listed on county property records as the building’s owner, since Startek was leasing the site.

A state business license search links Waccamaw Management Co. to CT Corporation, a Columbia-based registered agent.

An email response from an unnamed company official said CT Corporation doesn’t own any property, declining further comment without a handwritten letter

According to Startek Myrtle Beach’s social media accounts and hiring websites including GlassDoor, the company appears to be staffing back up headed into 2023.

A Dec. 14 posting offers $14 an hour for customer service representatives, which Startek markets as “brand champions.”

This story was originally published December 29, 2022 at 6:00 AM.