Zoot lays off 12

Zoot Enterprises laid off 12 employees Tuesday.

The tech company just moved into its new $10 million campus near Four Corners a month ago and CEO Chris Nelson said the layoffs were basically a result of the move. After the layoffs, the company has 135 employees remaining on the payroll in the Gallatin Valley.

By KAYLEY MENDENHALL Chronicle Staff Writer

"We had five different building locations. In each location we had receptionists," he said. "There were a lot of redundancies built into different teams for the sake of getting wiring and computer support moved."

Zoot http://zootweb.com conducts instant credit checks for banks and other financial institutions. A lot of work went into moving and coordinating computer equipment that had been spread out in several buildings on North Seventh Avenue.

"A lot of people were working on the move, working on the building. Moving forward, those positions are a lot less critical," said Eric Lindeen, a spokesman for the company. "It is definitely sad and unfortunate, but you need to focus on the people who are carrying the business forward."

The layoffs were not the result of any performance issues, Nelson said, but were simply a matter of people’s jobs being completed. Five or six months ago, the company laid off some construction workers whose jobs were completed, Nelson said, but otherwise the firm has never laid off employees before now.

Administrative positions were the focus of this round of layoffs and Nelson said he doesn’t expect further job cuts. Zoot has mostly been sheltered from the national economic downturn because its customers use its credit approval services even more in a down economy.

Kayley Mendenhall is at [email protected]

http://newspapers.mywebpal.com/partners/311/public/news388603.html