Telemarketing Software Featured Article

Is the economy recovering? Unemployment's still up, but there are pockets of hope. 

The Colorado Springs Gazette is reporting that “call center operator PRC plans to hire 200 people during the next six months at its northern Colorado Springs center to handle expected growth in incoming orders for satellite television offered by DirecTV (News - Alert), the company announced Thursday.” 

More call center people needed to service more customers for DirecTV in northern Colorado Springs, that's not exactly full recovery, but for those folks getting jobs in a tough economy, it ain't chopped liver.

Especially since, as the newspaper said that PRC's CEO Steven Richards said that the new hires will be for full-time, permanent positions with benefits that will boost the company’s local work force to 600 and will include sales agents, trainers and managers. 

PRC pays starting call center agents $10.50 an hour, “but they can earn an additional $4 to $6 an hour in incentive pay within three or four months if they meet and exceed sales goals,” Richards told the Gazette.

Positive economic news is still hard to find on the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's inauguration. If positive spin on economic news – articles titled “Experts Say Worst May Be Over,” “Positive Signs In Latest Economic Data,” “Recession 'Bottoming Out,' and Analysts Agree” – were an industry we'd be out of the woods, but unfortunately it's not. The latest USAToday/Gallup Poll finds that “Americans are thinking in terms of years, not months, when pondering how much longer it will be before the U.S. economy starts to recover.” 

Nevertheless, call center jobs, not previously a priority with state leaders, are now coveted. North Carolina Gov. Perdue recently trumpeted her accomplishments in securing 1,000 new jobs for the state from Zenta Mortgage Services. 

“The new jobs promised by Zenta were made all the more significant because of their classification as call-center jobs, a category state officials have discounted for incentive consideration. For years, 'they turned their noses up' at those kinds of jobs,” the Charlotte Business Journal reported.

Put that together with the news from the Journal that Convergys (News - Alert) Corp. plans to add 120 jobs in the next two months at its call center in Hickory, North Carolina. 

Hey, these days, you take your good news where you find it.