Call centres create 8,000 Northern Ontario jobs

A pre-election news release issued today by the Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation boasts that Northern Ontario is benefiting in a big way from call centres.

Citing numbers from Site Selection Canada, the ministry says Northern Ontario alone has benefited from 8,000 new call centre jobs over the last two and a half years.

Earlier this year, RMH Teleservices International Inc. announced it was creating as many as 300 new jobs for telephone service representatives at its Queen Street call centre.

Top managers from the company's international headquarters were scheduled to visit the Sault today for meetings with a major prospective new client.

The following is the full text of today's news release:

***************************** Ontario benefits from major growth of its call centre industry

TORONTO, March 21 - The Ernie Eves government's plan to attract new call centres to Ontario is paying big dividends, resulting in thousands of new jobs for Ontarians.

According to Site Selection Canada, the country attracted 67 new call centres in 2002, with 31 of them locating in Ontario, providing work for 10,095 Ontarians.

Cities across Ontario benefited from new permanent jobs in 2002, including Toronto (1,000), London (900), Welland (700), Thunder Bay (600), Peterborough (500), Orillia (500), Chatham (400), Brockville (300) and Kingston (300).

"Attracting investments such as call centres helps create much-needed jobs in communities throughout the province," Flaherty said.

"This is a priority of our government." The Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation was directly involved in working with companies in 20 of the 31 projects, resulting in 7,080 jobs and $98.2 million of investment.

Since the ministry began targeting call centres for potential investment in 1996, 95 new call centres have been established in Ontario, involving $524 million in new investment.

A total of 40,615 new jobs have resulted since 1996. Call centres in Northern Ontario alone have created 8,000 new jobs over the last two and a half years, in North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Timmins.

More than 150,000 people work in call centres across Ontario.

The vast majority of call centres in Ontario are inbound operations and provide information on a variety of services, including financial, health, hi-tech, telecommunications and product warranties.

Teletech Holdings, Inc. is expanding its presence in Ontario.

It will increase its workforce to nearly 1,000 people by the end of March at its call centre in Timmins, which opened a year ago.

"TeleTech Holdings, Inc. is a world leader in outsourced customer management services with 55 centres worldwide, including seven centres which employ 4,000 Ontarians," said Ron Chmara, executive director of Canadian Operations.

"We have a wealth of applicants with post-secondary education. Their work ethic and willingness to get into a new environment is high."

Ontario offers significant advantages for investment: a secure political environment, a favourable exchange rate, an outstanding telecommunications infrastructure and a well-educated, multi-lingual workforce.

*****************************************************************