Pro Staff shutters its <br> New England offices

MINNEAPOLIS – “Pro Staff has closed all offices in New England,” declares a notice posted on the door of the staffing agency’s downtown Providence branch.
“We have announced to our staff, our customers and to the talent we have on contract in the New England area that we will be discontinuing our operations in this market effective Feb. 29,” Becky A. Estby, the Minneapolis-based company’s director of human resources, told Providence Business News this afternoon.
“Contracted talent currently on assignment at customer locations will complete their engagements,” she said. “We will work with our customers and talent to transition both to other staffing service providers or to facilitate direct hiring.”
The company has seven New England offices, according to its Web site. Two are in Rhode Island, on West Exchange Street in Providence and Frenchtown Road in North Kingstown. The other five are in Massachusetts: in Braintree, Billerica, Framingham, Quincy and Boston.
“We are refocusing our energy, resources and investment on our stronger, established markets, as well as our Digital People specialty offices, and our strategic account on-site relationships,” Estby said. “We are committed to working with our customers and talent in the New England area to enable smooth transitions.”
Even in New England and the Northeast, she said, “we are remaining on-site at select strategic accounts.”
Pro Staff is a provider of administrative, finance and accounting, information technology, technical and creative services staff. Based in Minnesota – where it was founded a quarter of a century ago by the late Jeffrey P. Dobbs, as Dobbs Temporary Services Inc. – Pro Staff also has operations in California, Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. Nationwide, it reports an internal staff of more than 400 associates, and a talent pool of more than 30,000 workers, at its “100-plus” regional branches and on-site offices.
Its Digital People division, focusing on the creative services and marketing industries, lists offices; Dallas; Chicago and Rolling Meadows, Ill.; Bloomington, Minn.; and Boston, where Digital People shared space with the Pro Staff division. Asked about the fate of the Boston location, Estby replied: “Our Digital People offices are remaining open.”
A third division, Hunter Hamilton Professional Resources, focusing on senior-level accounting and finance personnel, has six offices in Minnesota.
Pro Staff, based in Minneapolis, is a nationwide provider of staffing, recruitment and career consulting services that offers short-term, long-term, contract and direct-hire options. Additional information is available at www.prostaff.com.