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THE Campbeltown economy had a shocking start to the New Year with the closure of the town’s call centre with the loss of 24 jobs
Centre operators Contact4 called everyone into a meeting on Friday at 11am to tell them they were out of work and by 11.15am desks and computers were being loaded onto lorries while the stunned staff cleared out their personal possessions from the custom-built centre at Snipefield.
Caroline Reynolds, spokeswoman for the company, said: ‘Contact4 Campbeltown announced today it is to close its Campbeltown call centre with immediate effect due to the continuing difficult trading conditions in the financial sub prime sector.
‘All 24 employees have been offered positions at Contact4 in Glasgow.
We are very disappointed that we have had to make this very difficult decision but the sub prime market is changing daily and we had to react to protect our business,’ Caroline Reynolds, spokeswoman for the company.
Less than two months ago in November the centre’s manager, Jonathon MacLean-Lambie, had reassured people that the centre’s future was secure.
‘The removal vans were waiting when we arrived for work,’ said one call centre worker, ‘they’ve been running the place down for months. How can you move to Paisley when you’ve a wife and weans at school and even then you’ve no guarantee the job is secure.’
Another said: ‘They said performance was poor but we know that not to be true; we were working from different data bases compared to the firm’s other centres.’
The call centre premises were built by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in a bid to attract what was then lucrative call centre work to Kintyre. It remained empty for a number of years before Contact4 leased the building.
In his capacity as a council and during his chairmanship of the Kintyre Initiative Working Group Councillor Donald Kelly fought hard and long to get an employer in the building.
He told The Courier this week: ‘After campaigning for years to help secure an operator for this building I am extremely disappointed that Contact4 have decided to close their business in Campbeltown.
‘I feel that the staff have been treated in a totally disrespectful manner and will be asking AIE to make every effort to recoup any grant aide given to this firm.’
Fellow councillor Rory Colville added: ‘Firstly support has to be given to those whose livelihoods have been affected, thereafter all agencies must work towards finding viable alternative employment, it is vital that Campbeltown does not loose out in this technological era.’
‘Reassurances’
Councillor John Semple has just taken over as the chairman of the working group, he told The Courier: ‘It was not a good time of year for this to happen to people, particularly when reassurances had been given to people at the end of 2007 that things were not as bad as they seemed to be.
He added that in the bid to bring more long-term sustainable jobs to Campbeltown, Scotland should be looking to her neighbours in Ireland for inspiration.
‘Redeployment of government departments is an area of interest and the new Scottish Government have held up the Irish model for office deployment which is a much more inclusive way of doing it than Scottish Natural Heritage did in Inverness; much more sustainable for communities in the long term.
‘Call centres were always going to be a fluctuating market.’
‘Severe blow’
Alan Reid MP for Argyll and Bute described the closure as ‘a severe blow to those who worked there and their families’.
He added: ‘This is not a good start to 2008 for Campbeltown. Prior to the announcement Campbeltown’s unemployment level was already the third highest in the Highlands and Islands. These job losses will mean that Campbeltown now has the highest rate.
‘In view of this I have contacted the Scottish Government and Highlands and Island Enterprise and urged them to make every effort to bring more work to Campbeltown. As Campbeltown has a workforce trained in call centre work, the most obvious solution is to attract another call centre company to come to the town. Urgent action is necessary before people are forced to leave the area to find work.
‘The Scottish Government must make attracting jobs to Campbeltown a top priority.’
