MetroGroup, one of Seward’s largest employers, will be moving its operations out of the town by summer, leaving about 270 people without jobs.

The direct mail company announced Friday that it has sold its MetroGroup Transaction Services business unit to Microdynamics Corporation of Naperville, Ill.

As a result, Transaction Services work that is being done in Seward will be moved to Illinois and other locations.

MetroGroup also said Friday that it will be moving Seward’s MetroGroup Marketing Services’ business to its plant in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.

As a result of that move, the company also has shifted its marketing services headquarters from Lincoln to Mount Pleasant.

As recently as the fall of 2006, MetroGroup had employed 90 people in Lincoln, but Jim McQuaid, chairman of MetroGroup Holding LLC, said employment had dwindled to just a handful of people, who will continue to work for the company out of their homes doing mainly sales work.

Another MetroGroup division that operates in Lincoln and Omaha, Cole Information Services, is not affected by the announcement, McQuaid said.

In October, MetroGroup had moved jobs to Seward and at the time employed more than 300 people there.

But  McQuaid said the sale of the division announced Friday, combined with reduced business for the marketing services division that operates in Seward, made it logical to look to consolidate the work elsewhere.

He said much of the work done in Seward was for credit cards and banks and that business has fallen off significantly in the past few months.

The MetroGroup closing came as a surprise to local business officials.

Charlie Schumacher, who is president of the Seward Chamber of Commerce, had not heard about the sale until informed by a reporter Friday morning.

He said there had been a local economic development meeting Wednesday and there had been no discussion of anything going on with MetroGroup.

“This is a surprise to me,” Schumacher said.

He said that from time to time there have been rumors about job cuts at the company, which he said is one of Seward’s five largest employers, but they have always turned out to be unfounded.

Lana Zumbrunn, Executive Director of the Seward County Economic Development group, said she had heard rumors that job cuts were coming, but she was not expecting the MetroGroup operations to close.

McQuaid said no one was let go immediately, but all the jobs will be phased out by summer.

He said a few people are being offered transfers to other locations, but the bulk of the employees will lose their jobs.

MetroGroup will offer those employees severance packages based on their job title and years of service, McQuaid said, and the company also plans to hold a job fair and offer career counseling to try to help affected employees find other jobs.

Both Schumacher and Zumbrunn sounded optimistic that Seward will weather the cuts.

Zumbrunn said the building MetroGroup is vacating will give the town a large property to market to potential new employers.

“Though the MetroGroup jobs will be missed, it will offer an opportunity for a future business,” she said.

Schumacher said that while the cuts  will “have a great impact” on Seward, local economic development officials would  work hard to replace the jobs and find others for the affected employees.

“That’s a lot of jobs for us (to lose),” Schumacher said. “But we can absorb this. We’re a pretty vibrant community.”

Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.