Monster plans to open S. Carolina facility

Monster.com, a job-search and employee-recruitment company, said today that it will open a customer-service facility in Florence, S.C., that will eventually employ 350 people.

Although formally headquartered in New York, Monster has much of its operations in Maynard; Monster is the flagship brand of Monster Worldwide Inc., a communications and technology company.

Monster said the rationale for opening a facility in South Carolina results from a decision to stop outsourcing its US customer-service needs and to bring them in-house at a centralized location.

Monster's head count in Maynard of 1,350 employees will be unaffected by the South Carolina decision, a company spokeswoman said.

“Opening the new customer support service center stems from an initiative to bring North American customer support in-house to ensure Monster leads the online recruitment industry in proactive service,” Art O’Donnell, Monster's executive vice president of service, said in a statement. “Florence is an ideal choice for us because it’s a rapidly developing labor market with the talent we’ll need to bring best-in-class service to our customers.”

Monster said that it will break ground for its new Florence facility in the coming months and begin area operations in September at a temporary location.

Over the last year or so, Monster has forged agreements with media companies representing more than 200 news publications. In early 2007, Monster disclosed a relationship with The New York Times Co., whose properties include The Boston Globe and Boston.com; the relationship is an alliance to sell help-wanted advertising.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)