439 call centre staff set to lose their jobs by September as OEM loses large customer.
Menafn.com reports that Xerox will lay off 439 employees at its call centre in East El Paso, Texas by the first week of September after the OEM reportedly “lost a large customer”, with 51 workers already losing their jobs.
Xerox spokesman Kevin Lightfoot said that the unnamed customer “changed its business strategy” and no longer needs to use Xerox’s call centre services, commenting: “This is a difficult but necessary decision we have to make.”
The job cuts come after Xerox reportedly advertised for 200 technical help desk jobs at the call centre in April; with the company stating that it will continue to employ around 500 people across three locations in El Paso, an area which employed around 14,000 people in the call centre industry last year. The OEM acquired the call centre from Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) in 2010.
Lightfoot asserted that some of the laid-off workers will qualify for severance pay and will also have the opportunity to apply for other positions with Xerox, in El Paso and other locations. Contract labour business Workforce Solutions is helping laid-off staff to find other jobs, with Lorenzo Reyes Jr., CEO of Workforce Solutions, commenting: “We are confident we have [other] positions for these employees, and are working closely with Xerox to help these employees.”
Xerox has made other recent cuts to its workforce, notably 300 lay-offs at two of its Oregon call centres in May; with CEO Ursula Burns announcing in November last year that the company would be cutting 2,500 jobs by the end of 2012 amid company restructuring.
On the other hand, Xerox announced in May that it plans to hire 400 document services staff at its facility in Maryland as the company focuses on its document service business.