MORE than 740 call centre staff face redundancy and shares in call centre and direct marketing specialist Salmat have been hit, after the company lost a major contract with Telstra yesterday.
Staff in three regional call centres, in Wagga Wagga, Geelong and Bundaberg, face losing their jobs, while workers in an inner-city call centre in Sydney are hoping for redeployment after Salmat failed to hold the Telstra contract.
A total of 742 staff, all on fixed-term contracts servicing Salmat’s Telstra account, are now awaiting news of their future.
Telstra’s call centre contracts with Salmat have been running for between five and eight years, with many of the staff affected being long-term employees.
Salmat said the loss of the contracts would slash its earnings by $4-5 million. The company has revised down its full-year EBITDA guidance for 2011 to between $87m and $92m. Salmat shares fell 5.5 per
A spokesman for Telstra said the telco was hopeful that Salmat would be able to redeploy the staff in other areas.
But a source at Salmat said the staff were dedicated to Telstra and unless the company was able to replace the Telstra contract with new business, it would be impossible to keep the centres operating.
In a statement to the market, Salmat said the loss of the Telstra contract was reflective of its strategy to move away from high-cost labour hire call centre contracts. “This decision clears the way for Salmat to focus on its strategy to provide professional outsourced call centre services delivering a superior customer experience and improved business efficiency to Australian businesses,” it said.
The company has been promoting its focus on technology solutions rather than reliance on manpower to investors in recent weeks.
Despite its impact on three major regional call centres, Telstra has defended its decision not to renew the contract with Salmat. “Calls handled by unsuccessful participants in this competitive process will be gradually wound down before moving to another specialist call centre provider,” a Telstra spokesperson said.
“We are sorry that this decision will have impacts on our partners and their staff, but we understand that there may be opportunities for them to redeploy staff.”
It is understood that both Telstra and Salmat are seeking federal and state government support in a bid to redeploy the call centre workers.
[theaustralian.com.au]
HIGH COST? That’s a laugh! Call centres are the new sweat shops and Salmat are in it up to their armpits. Pity they couldn’t pay their workers a decent wage. The lack of redundancy is just a slap in the face to the people who have made the owners very, very wealthy indeed.
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