UPDATED: Sykes closing in April

Sykes employees receive notice that business willclose on April 27th. Everyone has opportunity to work from home.

On Wednesday Sykes employees at the mall location in Newcastle received a letter informing them that the location would be closing on April 27th.  According to the employees we spoke to, all employees would be given an opportunity to work from home if they have a Fiber Op internet connection.

The two people we spoke didn’t think they would be taking the offer.  One lives in a rural area where Fiber Op service is not available, and the other person said they didn’t think they could do it at home because of childcare issues.

There are hundreds of people working a the Miramichi call centre, and the company has been actively recruiting more employees for years, offering paid trsining and other benefits.  The company used to be called ICT, but changed to Sykes about 7 years ago.

In 2015 Sykes closed a call centre in Riverview putting 250 people out of work, but 75 of those people were absorbed by another call centre right away.  

Sykes employees offer technical support for a variety of telecom companies, and receive wages between $12 and $14 an hour with benefits.

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UPDATE:  

After publishing the brief story about Sykes pending closure in April, Dana Wiederman, Regional Communications and Public Relations Director, contacted MO))) to add some context to the company’s decision to close the Miramichi location and offer instead home-based employment to its affected employees.

The 200+ workers at Sykes received notice on Wednesday, March 7th, that the office would be closing on April 27th, and all employees would have the opportunity to to work from home. They would need a quiet dedicated space to work from, and a high speed internet connection.

Weiderman says Sykes is a global company, and has over 55,000 employee.  She said Sykes works in a very competitive industry, and the needs of the clients they serve can be challenging to meet.  She acknowledged that the company had been recruiting heavily for several years, and they felt that going in this direction would be the best way to continue to best serve their clients.

She said she was unsure exactly how many employees were currently working at the Miramichi location, and the move to close the office and offer home-based work was a move that is not currently occurring across the company, and is unique to Miramichi.  She said compensation would remain the same for those who choose to work from home, and she believes it will be a very good fit for many of the affected employees.

She said the company had done similar things at other times in different locations, but she said she didn’t have any data on how many employees in those other locations had successfully transitioned to home-based employment.