Anthem building sale won’t cost jobs

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The departure of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield from its building at 2400 Market St. by June 30 will not result in any job losses for its 350 Youngstown-area workers, an Anthem spokesman said Tuesday.

Those workers will either be absorbed into Anthem’s Cleveland office or work from their homes, with the vast majority working from home, said Jeff Blunt, Anthem’s public-relations director.

Potential Development, a charter school for autistic children, is in the process of buying the building to house its elementary school, Paul J. Garchar Jr., the school’s executive director, said Monday.

Potential Development already operates its high school at 2405 Market St., which it bought from Anthem in 2013.

“In the interest of maintaining health plan affordability for our members and clients, we determined the best option was to transition our entire Youngstown workforce to a work-at-home model,” Blunt explained.

“As 21st-century technology has enabled the efficiencies of work-at-home associates, our need for office space in Youngstown has diminished,” he noted.

The vast majority of Anthem’s Youngstown workforce transitioned to working at home some time ago, leaving “only a handful of people working in our Youngstown office that was designed for 200,” Blunt said.

The few remaining Anthem workers at 2400 Market most recently were performing sales, provider network contracting and operations functions, he added.