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IBM to close Hillsboro, Ore., call center in 2007(Oregonian (Portland, OR) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 16--IBM plans by July 2007 to close a 620-person call center in Hillsboro, which fields customer service calls for General Motors Corp. The announcement of the closure comes when GM is scrimping on costs, although it is unclear that GM instigated the Hillsboro move. The automaker plans to cut thousands of jobs, trim employee benefits and reorganize operations to stem losses. The news also runs counter to an otherwise growing call-center sector in Oregon, which employs about two-thirds more workers than in 2001. An employee of the Hillsboro call center said an IBM subcontractor told workers that the GM work would be sent out of the country. IBM spokeswoman Jenny Galitz would not specify where the work would go. IBM, which recently won the contract to operate GM's three U.S. vehicle services call centers, decided with its subcontractors that the work would be better "integrated into our global network of delivery centers," Galitz said. IBM also plans to close a 400-person call center in Tampa, Fla., Galitz said, and reduce staff at a 500-person call center in Austin, Texas. All three centers handle GM's vehicle sales, service and marketing activity in North America. IBM subcontracts with Convergys Corp. to manage the Hillsboro and Tampa call centers. The Cincinnati-based company operates at least 48 call centers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and India. Along with customer service, the company also handles outsourced human resources, billing and technology support services. Richard Campbell, the call-center employee, said Convergys officials told workers Wednesday that the work would be moved to two sites in Canada as well as to sites in Argentina and the Philippines. Campbell, 50, said he was disappointed that jobs serving GM customers were being sent out of the country. "I talk to four or five people a week who want to know if they're talking to an American in an American city about an American car," said Campbell, an Aloha resident who's worked at the center for two years. He said he assures them that they are, but added, "that's not going to happen anymore." Officials with Convergys, which took over the site Jan. 1, plan to provide resume-writing and other job-transition services for workers, said Lauri Roderick, a spokeswoman for the company. "Obviously we haven't been there for very long, so we want to do what we can to help them through the change," Roderick said. IBM's Galitz said most job reductions in Hillsboro will come through attrition. Typically, call centers have high employee turnover. GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said the reductions are not part of a planned 30,000 cuts that the automaker announced late last year. "These aren't GM employees," she said. The reductions illustrate how deeply troubles afflicting the world's largest automaker reverberate across the nation's economy. In November, GM said it would shutter a 60-person parts distribution center in Beaverton that employs a longtime union work force. As recently as last year, the Hillsboro call center had been operated by Sitel Corp., based in Omaha, Neb. But in October, following yearlong competitive bidding, GM awarded IBM the contract to operate the three centers. IBM, in turn, subcontracted with Convergys to begin running the Hillsboro center. Carney said GM selected IBM based on quality, technology and price -- and because it offered "the best solution for our business to help keep us competitive." U.S. companies have been offshoring call center jobs for years, although Oregon's call center business has continued to grow. Call centers statewide employed at least 10,000 workers as of the first quarter of 2005, up from about 6,000 in the first quarter of 2001, according to the Oregon Employment Department. |