A business hailed as one of the fastest-growing companies in the Sacramento region moved its operations to Tennessee earlier this year and cited California’s business regulations as a major factor, the Sacramento Business Journal reported December 18.
“ClearCaptions LLC, a captioning service company formerly based in Roseville, closed its headquarters and a warehouse in Rocklin during the first quarter of 2025,” the newspaper wrote. “Its only physical facility now is an operations site in Antioch, Tennessee. Founded in 2011, ClearCaptions provides near real-time captions on phone calls for seniors with hearing loss. The company has appeared on the Business Journal’s Fastest Growing Companies list for years.”
In 2020, the company went fully remote, allowing its approximately 300 Sacramento-area employees to work from home.
The move to working from home made it natural to start hiring nationwide, Chief Executive Officer Bob Rae said.
“Complex payroll regulations in California for hourly workers, of which the company had many, also influenced the decision to hire elsewhere,” the Business Journal reported.
The company now has more than 600 employees, including about 78 in the Sacramento region.
In other California competitiveness news:
Employment Costs Increasing January 1. California employers will be mandated to pay a minimum wage of at least $16.90 per hour starting January 1, up from the current $16.50.
Also, workers will pay higher taxes as a result of an increase in the State Disability Insurance (SDI) Program payroll tax rate. The rate for 2026 will be 1.3 percent, up from 1.2 percent in 2025. Since January 1, 2024, all wages have been subject to this tax, which previously was limited to roughly the first $153,000 in wages.
Food Processing Company Closing Plant in California, Investing $785 Million in Other States. “Riverside-based Swift Beef Co., a unit of a global food processing giant from Brazil, plans to permanently lay off 374 workers at its Riverside meat processing factory by early February,” the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported December 16. “Swift’s parent JBS USA Food Co. plans to invest more than $785 million in new plants outside of California.”
The parent company “announced investment projects in Colorado, including $50 million to upgrade the Greeley beef packing plant with a new distribution center, $400 million in LaFayette, Georgia, for a new prepared foods facility, $135 million in Perry, Iowa, to build a new facility capable of producing 130 million pounds of sausage annually, and $200 million in Cactus, Texas, and Greeley beef production facilities,” the newspaper reported.
The company said the laid-off Californians will have opportunities to work in other facilities, with “relocation support” provided.