Petersburg center to create 500 jobs

Virginia Business
December 2005

It’s official: StarTek Inc. loves Virginia. After opening call centers in Lynchburg and Henry County last year, the Denver-based provider of business outsourcing services plans to open a third customer-care operation in Petersburg in January. The center will bring 500 new jobs to Petersburg. The city has been grappling with a 7.1 percent jobless rate, twice the state average.

“We felt that Petersburg was a perfect fit for us,” says Amy Claire Wild, vice president of marketing for StarTek. She notes that the company looks for a service area with a population of about 100,000 people, a skilled work force, a community college that can provide recruitment services and job training, and a higher-than-normal unemployment rate that ensures jobs are filled quickly. “The city definitely has a good labor pool that is anxious to get back to work.”

Initially, the call center will provide 24/7 inbound customer support exclusively for a new telecommunications client. The majority of new jobs will be customer-care representatives who will be paid $7 to $8 per hour but have no benefits. Wild says, however, that the company might begin offering benefits next year. Supervisory and human resources roles will offer salaries in the high $20,000 to low $30,000 range along with a benefits package. With the opening of the center, in the old J. Crew call center, StarTek will employ more than 1,500 Virginians.

Virginia competed with Texas and Washington State for the project. Wild says that one reason for StarTek’s buildup in Virginia is the state’s economic development program. “We work with a lot of states, but I’d have to say that Virginia’s is the best in the business,” she says.