With all the other news last week, one that may affect the Maritimes as much as the US ban on beef imports is the proposed effective ban on US firms using call centres located in other countries. In the heady 90's many politicians in the East lunched out on the concept that call centres were IT jobs...something akin to pumping gas being part of either the oil or auto parts industry sector.
Still, a job is a job and export dolalrs are better than local ones if you want economic growth. Ruk had a great thread about the issues surrounding these employers a few weeks ago. Here is a list of the Nova Scotian call centres. How many depend on the profit margin from US work to stay open?
Comments
Ben - February 22, 2004 6:03 PM
fortuneatley the largest call centre employer on PEI- Online Support- gets the majority of its business from within Canada, unless that has changed in the last 2 years. the discussion on Ruk's site was interesting but I think people are overlooking the fact that OLS for one is a local company that provides decent paying jobs for people wo don't necessarily have a great education. Woriking at an incoming call centre like theirs is also a decent way to hone customer service skills. I think people are a bit too harsh on the industry in general, though it certainly be treated like an unemployment cure-all by the Maritime governments.