Call centre industry drying up in northern Ontario

The 200 people being laid off at Teletech in Sudbury is the latest sign of the shrinking call centre industry in the northern Ontario.

The US-based company has said little about why it's shutting down operations here. The company once had 800 workers in the city and operated call centres in all the major cities in the northeast.

At one time, about 2,600 Sudburians worked in a call centre. Once Teletech closes later this year, that number will be down to around 1,000.

It’s a big change from the '90s, when unemployment was high and the price of nickel was low. Back then the city actively courted call centre companies.

But that has changed, said Greater Sudbury business development officer JM Chenier.

"If we get inquiries by a particular contact centre, we'll certainly facilitate that attraction, but we may not be actively going to recruit," he said.

That recruiting used to come with millions in government grants. Teletech received $5.5 million from the provincial and federal governments to come to Sudbury.

Laurentian University marketing professor Luc Lagrandeur said northern Ontario was also attractive because call centres needed French and English operators.

But the government money has dried up and multilingual workers are now not as hard to find around the world.

"Now Teletech is looking at it from a cost perspective and labour is a lot more expensive in Sudbury," Lagrandeur said.

Teletech said that only a few of the jobs from Sudbury will be moved overseas, however.

For those who are left behind, community leaders remain hopeful for their future.

"We think the economy is very much in a boom time and we would hope that these people that are about to be laid off will be able to be absorbed into the economy," said Debbi Nicholson, CEO of the Sudbury chamber of commerce.