Narayan AmmachchiIndian outsourcing firm Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) is shutting down its call center in Canada’s Thunder Bay, apparently due to a lack of skilled employees willing to take up the job. HGS is the second outsourcer to vacate the city in the past two months, with Teleperformance having announced the closure of its call center in February.
Despite operating in the city for the past five years, Bangalore-based HGS has not managed to acquire enough employees for its call center, according to Canada’s CBC News. The outsourcer wanted to hire about 300 call center agents, but could only attract about half that number.
Teleperformance has already laid off 160 people, while HGS’ exit will put another 140 people out of work. HGS has not publicly announced the decision, but the company has reportedly informed its employees via email.
According to local news reports, the Indian outsourcer conducted lengthy job fairs in the city, but few candidates turned up for interviews.
“We have been recruiting aggressively for the four-and-a-half years we’ve been here. We’ve done things within our company to make our employment opportunities more attractive and more competitive and still we were unable to maintain or even reach 300 employees,” stated Kathy Follett-Lloyd, HGS’ vice president of human resources, according to CBC News.
Follett-Lloyd has argued that wages were certainly not a factor that made the jobs less attractive: “Starting pay at HGS is $12.25 an hour and the average wage is higher.”
Even after Teleperformance announced the closure of its operations in Thunder Bay, HGS was unable to fill its vacancies in the city, which has the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.
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