Sony Pictures Imageworks, one of Hollywood’s leading visual effects companies, plans to move more than 100 jobs from Culver City to New Mexico if state lawmakers give their expected blessing next week to film industry financial sweeteners, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Although Imageworks would remain in Culver City, along with a majority of its employees, the decision to shift a major chunk of its operation elsewhere marks a symbolic blow to Southern California as it struggles to keep its signature business from being poached by other states and countries.

Most of the battles to date have involved trying to keep specific films or TV shows from shooting elsewhere. In this case, the move involves the kind of nuts-and-bolts operation that makes up the film and TV industry’s backbone.

“It’s an indication that the bricks-and-mortar infrastructure that we have long enjoyed is not completely rooted here,” said Kathleen Milnes, president of the Entertainment Economy Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Pacific Palisades. “That should serve as a wake-up call.”

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