Credit Suisse on Tuesday announced that
it was moving ahead with plans to add 1,200 jobs in North Carolina
now that lawmakers have partially repealed House Bill 2.
House Bill 2 blocked cities and
municipalities from enacting LGBT protections and prohibited
transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice in many
buildings. Lawmakers in March replaced the law. The new law, House
Bill 142, leaves bathroom regulation to the state and enacts a
moratorium on local LGBT ordinances until December 1, 2020.
Credit Suisse, which is based in
Zurich, will add the jobs at its suburban Raleigh site, which
currently houses 1,500 Credit Suisse employees, the News
& Observer reported.
“The HB2 legislation was a major
challenge for our decision process,” Vice Chairman Wilson Ervin
said at a press conference led by Governor Roy Cooper. “We believe
that a culture of inclusion and acceptance is critical for our
company, for our workforce and our clients. We opposed that law.”
“During the period that HB2 was on
the books, we had to put our plans on hold. We did not think that
expansion could be done in a way that was consistent with our core
values," Ervin added.
Critics of the new law point out that
the LGBT community remains without protections and that the
Republican-led Legislature put itself in charge of bathroom policies.
Ervin said that the compromise
established “minimum conditions” for the company to expand in the
state.
Other companies that canceled expansion
plans over House Bill 2 include Deutsche Bank and PayPal.