A new call centre at the Village Mall aims to employ 500 people in the St. John’s area.
Brian Cato, president of S&P Data, says the U.S.-based company was drawn to the area due to a workforce familiar with call centres.
“The financial is nice, there are costs,” said Cato.
“What’s more important to us is the quality of the workers, which we find here.”
The average salary expected will be between $30,000 and $32,000 annually, though Cato says there are other incentives and opportunity to increase the pay for employees.
The call centre will take calls for Rogers Communications.
Currently, there are about 50 employees undergoing training, with those likely becoming managing staff for the call centre. Cato says the company has been overwhelmed with applications, but he’s taking an aggressive approach, still looking for more.
The provincial and federal governments are chipping in a total of $1.725 million toward the $3-million cost to the company for the move to St. John’s.
The province is providing a $975,000 repayable loan to assist with start-up costs, as well as a $250,000 contribution to fund training, while the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is providing a repayable loan of $500,000 through its Business Development Program.
S&P Data has signed a five-year lease to operate at the Village Shopping Centre. The company has a tenured client base, including many of the largest telecommunications companies in North America. The call centre is slated to open in November.
S&P has about 3,000 employees across nine call centres in Canada, with two bilingual operations in New Brunswick.
The call centre is housed in the former Convergys space in the Village Mall, which opened in 2006 before moving out of the province.
In the early 2000s, a bevy of call centre announcements were made by the government led by then-premier Brian Tobin. Some stayed and some later downsized to other regions.
