Transamerica laying off 60 in Cedar Rapids, 140 nationwide

Transamerica on Wednesday notified its employees that 60 associates will be let go in Cedar Rapids over the next six to nine months as part of 140 layoffs planned nationwide.

"Nobody today is losing their job," said Greg Tucker, senior vice president, Americas corporate communications for Transamerica. "It will be quite a lengthy period of transition.

"We established what's called the Enterprise Business Services last year as a division. We brought together a lot of the functions necessary to support our business in a shared-services model.

"Roughly 200 positions that are currently in our life-and-protection business will move to Enterprise Business Services. We will be eliminating 140 positions nationwide, including about 60 in Cedar Rapids."

Tucker said some of the work currently performed by Transamerica employees will be outsourced to contractors.

“In today's competitive environment, Transamerica is committed to identifying ways to improve the quality of services we provide our customers, while at the same time being more efficient in how we manage our business with the aim of reducing our overall cost structure,” Tucker said.

“This inevitably entails identifying those functions that should continue to be performed internally and those that can best be carried-out by external providers with the required expertise and at a lower cost.”

Tucker said Transamerica employs about 3,500 in Cedar Rapids. He noted that the company has added about 200 jobs in Cedar Rapids over the last year.

Transamerica is the former AEGON USA, which took the name of its Transamerica subsidiary acquired in 1999.