In a blow to Ottawa's high-tech sector, dozens of Dell call-centre employees in the city are losing their jobs and corporate plans announced with much fanfare to hire about 1,200 others are being scrapped, the world's No. 2 personal computer maker said Tuesday.

A spokesman said the job cuts in Ottawa are the result of a company-wide decision to trim its overall workforce as part of a longer-term strategy to boost corporate performance.

"We're reducing the head count there," Jess Blackburn said in an interview from Dell Inc. headquarters in Round Rock, Texas.

"This is part of Dell's global review of its business operations and efforts to consolidate and reduce … costs of operations around the world."

Blackburn refused to say exactly how many of the approximately 1,500 Dell Canada employees in Ottawa, who provide technical support for Dell customers in Canada and the United States, are being shown the door.

He did say, however, that the number is in line with the company's overall aim of cutting its global workforce by 10 per cent, suggesting about 150 jobs were being lost.

"The actions that were taken in Ottawa are consistent with steps that we're taking elsewhere in the world to meet this goal," Blackburn said.

"There were people who are receiving severance packages and receiving help from the company in terms of that transition. But they have lost their jobs with Dell."

New facility remains vacant

The work is to be consolidated within the company's network of global call centres.

Little more than a year ago, CEO Michael Dell travelled to Ottawa to announce plans to double the size of the call centre — which then employed about 1,200 people — and house the hires in a new 150,000-square-foot building in Ottawa.

The recently completed building — dubbed Ottawa 2 by Dell, and originally scheduled to open in April — will remain empty until the company decides what to do with it.

On Tuesday, the company's website was still announcing plans to recruit 500 "customer support pros" for its Ottawa centre.

Dell Canada, headquartered in Toronto, also has offices in Montreal and Edmonton, but no announcements were made regarding personnel in those cities.

Dell has lagged behind Hewlett-Packard Co. since 2006 as it deals with an intensely competitive PC environment and complaints about its customer service.

Push into retail changing call-centre business

Last May, the company said it would slash as many as 8,800 workers over 12 months but said no cuts would be made in Ottawa.

Since then, however, the company faced a rapid rise in the strength of the Canadian dollar.

The company has already trimmed jobs at call centres in two states and turned to selling its direct-to-consumer machines through some retail outlets such as Wal-Mart.

"Part of our work to get our company's performance back to the level that we want it to be at is some reduction of our operating costs," said Blackburn.

"That's why we're looking at these realignments and consolidations and taking some actions in some areas to reduce our employment."

While fourth quarter results were promising, Dell shares have fallen on the Nasdaq by about 16 per cent this year.