UnitedHealth, Snyder: 75 jobs head for Southfield, Michigan

Published 10:00 am Wednesday, April 30, 2014

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Gov. Rick Snyder joined officials of a leading health benefits and services provider Tuesday to announce that the Minnesota-based company is adding 75 jobs in southeastern Michigan.

UnitedHealth Group chief executive Stephen Hemsley was in the Detroit suburb of Southfield for the announcement Tuesday afternoon.

The Minnetonka-based company said it has about 530 employees in Southfield and six other offices around the state. It said 75 jobs will be added in Southfield in 2014 and potentially 45 more within three years.

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“It’s a great industry area for Michigan – the intersection of information technology and health care,” Snyder said.

The company said the new jobs are in its Optum subsidiary, which employs about 65,000 people worldwide. Optum reported $11.2 billion in revenue in the latest quarter, up about 30 percent from the same period one year earlier.

One of Optum’s newer functions is helping government officials fix online state health insurance marketplaces unveiled under the federal health care law.

The company said that it has had success with hiring graduates of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

“We find this community to be a very welcoming, very talented, very innovative, very ambitious community,” Hemsley said.

The new jobs will be in software development, Internet design and program management, reports said.