North Carolina cancels jobs deals with Syneos Health and Clorox

• Post-pandemic struggles to reach promised hiring numbers for office-based jobs has been a recurring theme among the cancellations.
• Most of the state's jobs incentives since the pandemic have gone to manufacturing and clean energy companies.

Driving the news: Syneos, which employs around 2,000 people in Morrisville, told the state in a letter it would not be able to meet the requirement to create more than 500 jobs due to "organic attrition" and the rise of remote work.

• Syneos had earned some of the $8.4 million in incentives but said it would not make additional milestones.

Clorox, which owns Durham-based Burt's Bees and has 520 employees in the Bull City, also cited remote work and a change in business strategy in its cancellation request.

• In 2020, Clorox agreed to a $2 million incentives deal to create 158 new jobs, mainly in its health supplements and vitamins business. It had not yet received any of that money.
• Reuters reported last year that Clorox's effort to scale the vitamin and supplement side of its business "led to major losses."

Go deeper: North Carolina's incentives model doesn't work when employees can work from anywhere