Atelka closing Saint John call centre

Atelka is closing its call centre in Saint John, making it the latest of its kind to pull up stakes in the city.

It is estimated that 142 employees will lose their jobs when the centre that takes IT-related customer service calls closes.

An analysis of agreements with the company's clients led to the decision, said spokeswoman Karine Vachon.

"In order to maintain our operational efficiency and enable us to pursue growth, this analysis led us to the decision to close the call centre in Saint John," she said.

Melanie Lynch, who has worked at the centre on Manawagonish Road for the past 3½ years and turned down a different job last week, said she is "devastated."

She was called in during her day off on Tuesday, only to be told she'll soon be unemployed.

"It was loyalty to me, to stay where I was at," Lynch said. "I knew what I was doing, comfortable, liked the people I worked with, supervisors."

She suspects the low number of calls coming in is to blame. "They've been cutting our hours back since December. We've been cut back from five days to four days. And they days that we are here, they're sending us home early."

Co-worker Ryan Nice was also left reeling by the news.

"We heard rumours — there was like 12 big wigs in today, so we were all you know 'What's going to happen?' And then all of a sudden they started taking everybody in, groups at a time, like 15, 20 people at a time [and] basically just said that our client basically is pulling out," Nice said.

"I feel really, really hurt. Horrible. It feels almost like depression is starting to kick in," he said. "I seen people crying, that's kind of emotional...Just came right out of nowhere.

"They said they're going to try to help us find other work, sell us to a different company… But at this point, you know, when you just buy a house, or people in there that have kids, what are you going to do?"

The layoffs will be spread over three months, starting on Feb. 12, officials said.

The centre, which was established in 2003, is expected to close permanently on May 6.

Employees are being offered bonuses to stay until their staggered layoff dates, Nice said.

Atelka is an inbound customer service call centre that deals with the information technology sector. The Montreal-based company also has offices in Fredericton and Charlottetown.

Neither of those offices will be affected, Vachon said.

Saint John's call centre industry has been shedding jobs recently. Last year, the RCI division of Wyndham Worldwide laid off 300 employees.