Locallife plans thousands of Valley jobs

Locallife, a British-based Internet services company, is establishing its U.S. headquarters at SkySong in Scottsdale and could hire up to 4,000 local employees during the next five years.

The company has moved into temporary space at the Arizona State University business innovation center with a staff of about a dozen, plus support personnel from Great Britain, said Bashir Manji, chief operating officer for Locallife USA.

The group plans to move into permanent offices at SkySong by mid-May or early June with about 30 employees, he said.

The company will be able to expand into added space as needed and could eventually set up offices at other Valley locations as the organization continues to build, he said.

He anticipates the company will need 1,000 Valley employees in one to three years and 4,000 within five years.

The company plans to hire employees in Web design, administration, sales and management, he said.

Formed in 1999, Locallife.co.uk is a network of 324 local Internet directories covering every major community in the United Kingdom.

Now the company wants to expand the concept to the U.S., creating Internet directories for about 2,000 communities across America.

The company will sell franchises to local residents in the individual communities who will promoting Locallife’s services in those communities, from placing advertising and listings in the Internet directories to developing Web sites for small to mid-sized businesses. Locallife also plans to operate some company-owned service territories.

Valley-based personnel will provide technical, sales and other support for the local operations.

The concept provides advertisers and consumers with precise information for highly targeted geographic and classification searches, offering advantages over larger search engines that gather information more randomly, the company said.

New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley were considered as potential locations for Locallife’s U.S. headquarters, but the Valley was selected because of the region’s expanding technology sector and lower business costs, according to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, which helped recruit Locallife to the Valley.

Also, Manji said the company liked the ASU connection, which will provide a workforce source and other benefits such as research and development.

Valley economic development officials see the company’s decision as a major coup.

“International interest in Greater Phoenix is escalating, and the addition of Locallife to the dynamic portfolio of companies at SkySong is a major foreign direct investment win,” said GPEC President Barry Broome, in a written statement.

Jan Lesher, director of the Arizona Department of Commerce, said it’s evidence the state’s efforts to attract foreign companies are paying off.  “Locallife is one of many new foreign-owned companies looking seriously at capital investments in Arizona,” she said.