About 250 call-centre workers in this Sears building in Regina learned Thursday they will lose their jobs come September. (CBC)Canadian retail giant Sears is paring down its customer call centres, closing its operations in Regina and reducing its workforce at another centre in Ontario.
Workers in both locations were given notice of the job losses on Thursday, which will take effect in September.
In Regina about 250 people were given notices. Another 230 workers were affected in Belleville, Ont. The Belleville job losses were in the company's catalog division.
"We've out sourced it [the call-centre function] to a Canadian company that does have operations in Canada as well as in the Philippines," Vincent Power, a spokesman for Sears, told CBC News on Thursday.
'This is the way the industry is going.'— Vincent Power, Sears Canada spokesman
Power said the job cuts were due to advancing technology and the seasonal requirements of the service.
"This move has nothing to do with the performance of our employees or how they serve customers," Power said. "They've been great. But in the call- centre industry this is the way the industry is going and as a company we owe it to save more jobs."
A call centre in Montreal was not affected by the cuts.
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