With the U.S. economy in a tailspin there have been many larger corporations bringing (what once were) American jobs, back home. The most recent is Sallie Mae who is shutting down their overseas operations and bringing over 2,000 call center jobs back to the United States.
A few months ago AT&T announced that it would be adding 400 call center jobs in Las Vegas as it was shutting down some of their overseas operations.
Hopefully Sallie Mae will re-energize their Las Vegas call center. Sallie Mae used to manage a pretty large operation up on West Charleston Boulevard.
Las Vegas was once known as a Call Center Mecca. Second only to Phoenix. Why? We operate a 24-7 town and have a fairly well educated workforce. Call centers started relocating to Las Vegas, with the encouragement of the Nevada Development Authority, back in the mid 1980s. Citibank was the first to relocate to Las Vegas, setting up shop at the Lakes. Quickly following were HSBC, Sallie Mae, CSAA and dozens of others…..everything from banking to insurance customer service centers, tech help desks to long distance services.
And somewhere along the way, cutting costs became more important than delivering quality customer service. Many of these call center jobs were outsourced to India and other countries that offer lower-cost labor solutions. I would like to believe that the corporations wised up to the crappy customer service they were delivering, but really I think they are looking to earn some political capital by bringing these jobs home during this time. Hopefully, the jobs will remain here in the United States when the economy recovers.
