Braintree gets ready to double its workforce

Braintree, the eBay-owned electronics payments company, opened a new 65,000-square-foot office in the Merchandise Mart on Thursday.

Braintree moved from 111 N. Canal with the help of $12 million in state tax credits its parent company received in June. EBay bought Chicago-based Braintree in 2013.

The company is expected to create 216 new full-time jobs in Chicago in 2016 and an additional 144 jobs in 2017 — more than doubling its staff in the next three years.

Braintree now employs 180.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who aims to oversee a doubling of the city’s tech workforce in the next 10 years, says Chicago has added 10,000 new technology jobs in the past three years.

Gov. Pat Quinn has overseen tax-credit deals for Groupon, GrubHub and Yahoo under its EDGE program (Economic Development for a Growing Economy). It’s a credit over the company’s state income tax liability based on the company’s pledge to create or retain jobs in Illinois that could have gone elsewhere.