Southwest Virginia Job loses 2010-2020.

More Replacement Jobs for Scott County Virginia - Ultimately

by Lewis Loflin

We were promised hi-tech jobs with good pay. Instead, we lost 45% of the information-related jobs we had. $300 million and nothing but more call centers. We will have fewer call center jobs in 2022.

We had call centers before the millions spent on fiber optic. The fiber optic is great but the economic recovery they promised is still elusive.

TTech, known in the past as TeleTech, is another reasonably low-paying call center company. The record on luring in call centers into Southwest is appalling.

Millions spend on infrastructure, fiber optic, and incentives produce little long-term benefits in jobs.

In this case, they are relocating to Scott County after firing their workforce in Texas. Their stock price has fallen by half in the last 14 months.

They have at least four other call centers in Virginia and no job openings in Southwest Virginia.

I'll continue to watch this company. I believe they won't stay around, either.

Dallas Morning News July 31, 2017 reports the following:

"Colorado-based TeleTech is laying off more than 350 people in Richardson in late September, according to a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission. The outsourcing company provides customer support and other services."

It seems they fired their Texas workforce for Scott County. Incentives and low pay once again cost other workers their jobs.

Update 2022:

TeleTech is now TTEC. You may have received communications from TeleTech in the past - and we wanted to let you know that TeleTech is now TTEC - all the same rules above apply - when in doubt, head straight to TTECjobs.com for our legitimate job openings.

To quote the Denver Post April 16, 2021:

The outsourcing customer-support company TTEC plans to lay off 252 employees after one of its clients switched to an in-house customer-service program.

The Kansas City Business Journal May 2, 2022 claims TTEC is hiring 450 employees in Overland Park, Kansas.

Their stock price peaked at $110 May, 2021. Their stock price is $51 September 2022. This is a 50% decline in 14 months.

Posted September 2022. There are no job openings in Weber City. They have four other facilities in Virginia with openings. These are in Clifton Forge, Martinsville, Hampton, and Arlington.

TTECHjobs.com claims:

TTEC at home offers full-time, part-time, and seasonal roles. Depending on the program, role and local minimum wage guidelines, base hourly wages range from $11.50 to $16.00.

Mostly adjusted minimum wage ~$12 an hour. This is work at home.

We have a saying around here, "If you don't like your job then wait around and get laid off anyway." The Pioneer Center in Duffield cost millions and was setup at public expense to house a call center a few years ago. "125 new jobs" proclaimed local economic developers - it closed soon after.

It was something called Results Network - today the Pioneer is rented out as general office space something the private sector could have supplied. I stopped by the Pioneer Center and the door had nothing about any call center on the occupant plaque.

The same people are exited about another call center to replace the jobs that went away in Duffield. They say "ultimately" 300 jobs - in the past these "announcements" have proven exaggerated. Something called TeleTech Holdings, Inc. which according to Virginia Tobacco Regional Revitalization Commission Chairman and State Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City. He was behind the Pioneer Center fiasco says,

"This is (TeleTech's) first location in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They are a global provider of customer experience, engagement and growth solutions and they have over 40,000 employees worldwide...We wouldn't be here today if the county had not invested (in) and purchased that property"

Turned out the Teletech is another Sykes constantly moving, firing their employees, then collecting incentives and cheaper labor from the next sucker community.

See Wise Virginia Call Center Won't Hire 500 New Workers.

This announcement was in 2015 and county official claim these jobs pay about $12 an hour.

Note that minimum wage in 1970 was $1.60 adjusted for inflation is $10.46 in 2018. That is what I call adjusted minimum wage. Under the leader of Mr. Kilgore and friends from 2010 to 2018 Scott County population fell 7.1% and has an 18% poverty rate.

See Scott County Virginia Economic Backwater

That property is in Weber City this time and I assume the free land, infrastructure, and $745,000 cash gifts from taxpayers is the exact same nonsense with the Pioneer Center. As of Sunday May 15, 2016 ground has barely been broken. The location is along US 23 next to the Holston River. So we have to pay again for "ultimately" 300 jobs I'll bet never materialize. What's that saying about doing the same thing over and over expecting differing results?

Additional costs to the public includes, "Funding and services to support the company's employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program, administered by VEDP."

But get this quote, "Officials estimate the pay for the TeleTech jobs, which include benefits, will, on average, exceed $12.50 per hour." Don't they actually know? They spend millions to buy jobs, but don't really know much about the jobs or how many?

They will be housed at the Pioneer Center, while the new building in Weber City is under construction. Why not just leave them at the Pioneer Center?

For more information about careers at TeleTech, visit http://www.teletechjobs.com/. Also ask them about the almost 200 people they fired in 2014 and about their annual pay rate at $14,000 to $23,000.

Seven months after the announcement nothing has come of this. I'll check back once in a while.

Ref. October 21, 2015 Kingsport Times News;
http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2014/01/18/teletech-lay-192-workers-march/;
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Teletech/Salary

Mr. Kilgore by the way runs the Virginia Tobacco Commission and has faced a storm of controversy in the past.

Their 2011 Blue Ribbon audit revealed 89 percent of their grants have never been accounted for. Millions wasted on a wholesale plant nursery in Gretna VA to make bio-fuels and a horse camp in Scott County are typical examples.

Yes we have broadband and spent millions.

A look at 2 decades of cable ready socialism in our region:
Cable Ready Socialism
How CGI-AMS and Northrop Grumman Failed Russell County
How Cable Ready Socialism Failed Southwest Virginia
Sprint Jumps State Line Collects Millions
U.S. Solutions Dumps Bristol Virginia for Bristol Tennessee
Travelocity Fails Dickenson County

To quote LENOWISCO Broadband Study Warned against Call Centers (PDF file):

"The region has been replacing traditional (better paying) manufacturing jobs with (low paying subsidized) call center jobs, which provide limited advancement and work opportunities. Call centers represent the factory floor of the Knowledge Economy; they are an important part of a diversified economic development strategy, but the region must be careful not to rely too heavily on them, as the work is easily moved to other regions and/or other countries."