LEWISTON, Maine — Nearly 200 people working at the call center formerly known as Affiliated Computer Services got bad news Friday.
Now owned and operated by Xerox, company officials told workers they would layoff 181 people by the middle of summer.
If there was any good news, it was that the layoffs won’t begin until July. A Xerox spokesman said 121 people would be let go July 18, and another 60 workers would lose their jobs July 31.
Company officials began breaking the news to employees Friday morning, alerting them that by the end of July, they will have to find new jobs.
“We believe that if we give them enough time,” said spokesman Alexander Charles, “it will help them to make adjustments.”
The workers being laid off have been handling calls directed to Allstate and Capitol One. Alexander said the company found that it is no longer economically feasible to keep those positions open.
The news was particularly sour for some: Less than a year ago ACS announced its Lewiston call center was getting bigger and would hire more local people.
At the end of August 2011, ACS announced it was expanding its operations in the city and that 200 new jobs would result. The company went ahead with those plans, hiring supervisors and call center agents to provide technical support and customer services.
But changes to the company’s infrastructure soon followed. Xerox spokesman Kevin Lightfoot said that starting in January, the company began to phase out the ACS name at the Lewiston facility.
An employee at the company said Xerox brought in a human resources worker Friday to help announce the layoffs. Each employee was pulled aside and given notice, the employee said. After receiving the grim news, they went back to work.
Xerox acquired ACS in 2009 in a cash and stock transaction worth $6.4 billion.
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Alexander said the company found that it is no longer economically feasible to keep those positions open.
Translation, We will be outsourcing to another country where we can hire 5 workers for every 1 US worker. I wonder if anyone in the Senate will fight for these jobs?
NO, because they are not Union jobs. Just some more slave wage jobs. Plenty of those in Maine. Just in time to work in a tourist trap instead.
It’s called screw the Mainers again….
Every week more Maine jobs BYE BYE. LePage you are doing a great job destroying what is left of Maine. Now you put our Bond ratings in the SEWER too. You promised all these new jobs 16 months ago. Every week you have been in office we lose jobs. LePage you lied.
As long as this State continues to rely on factory jobs that can be done by anyone for a much lower wage overseas, it will continue to come up short. Making shoes, answering phones, knitting textiles, making paper or processing seafood – those jobs moved overseas years ago because there is cheap labor there. Neither America, nor the State of Maine seems to have realized that yet.
There is cheap, uneducated labor all over the world. The best bargains used to be in Maine, but not anymore. After I spent 15 minutes in line at a very busy dairy bar in Newport this evening, and had a chance to soak in the folks around me, I decided that I need to learn to speak Chinese. Maine is in serious trouble.
Republicans keep tearing away at the benefits that distinguish American workers from Chinese workers, in some kind of deluded attempt to reduced American workers to an obedient servitude–a servitude in which they will always blame themselves for whatever goes wrong, and quietly die, praising their millionaire masters, when they can’t afford a doctor.
Really? Republicans? So what you are saying is (I’m assuming you are democrat) we should have radically increased their employers taxes to make it all better?
V
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Oh Bummer has certainly turned this economy around, mkay?
Obama in 2009: If I can’t fix the economy in three years, you can call me former President Obama
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Well, if you are able bodied and don’t want to work, I can see what you’re worried about.
Your standard liberal answer of ” isn’t helping anyone but the wealthy and supports corporate welfare” won’t be true no matter how many times you repeat it.
….
I am a liberal and I work fairly hard. Always have. Hard enough for my conservative parents to be proud of me.
Denying the reality that is obvious to anyone with eyes to see, will not change the truth of that reality. You really should consider pulling your head out of the sand and checking in with the real world once in a while.
very well said!!
This has nothing to do with Obama……..this is local.
Dog-gone Baldacci is still wreaking havoc here. Musta snuck back in during the night.
I thought Maine was welcome for business….
I’m just wondering of ACS got any tax credit’s or break’s for opening their business here or hiring Mainer’s. With all of the supposed ‘re-training’ going on it might be good idea to see just how much Maine put up to get ACS to locate here in the 1st place. Maine almost got burned by Kestrel. It would be nice to know that we didn’t get burned by this one too.
yup Maine got screwed!
And where did Kestrel go?WI.Just a giveaway to Walker from the Koches since he’s desperate to wave something around.
Maine gave away a boatload of red ink to Wisconsin and they can have it ! If that’s Walker’s idea of economic development then is it a wonder why he’s panicing and crying for PAC money ?
He’s ahead in the polls with 3 weeks to go and has raised staggering amounts of $$.The R’s are absolutely terrified to lose that governorship in an election yeear.
Walker being ahead in the poll’s with a job LOSS of over 23K while at the same time going OUT OF STATE to raise campaign fund’s tells me a whole lot. It’s also something that Walker’s not really anxious to go around telling anyone as a part of is campaign. Wisconsin voter’s are gonna have the opportunity to show us here in Maine just how we need to organize and develop our Candidate’s of whatever Party, in order to get our State back from the Tea Partyr’s and right-wing extremeists. The more Walker keeps shooting off his mouth how ‘good’ things are in Wisconsin, and the public see’s just how badly Walker is lying, the more overwhelming he’s gonna lose his butt.
I hope you’re right.We need all the help we can get here against the onslaught of lies from the TP.
We need to make the tax breaks apply to the second or third year. Probably won’t help, though. some of us remember Raytheon in Lewiston. I believe that as soon as their tax deal expired, they got out of town.
True and when they left they went right to Mass. where Romney gave’m huge tax breaks on supposed worker training and property taxes in return for their staying put. Of course as soon as Mitt got his clock ‘cleaned,’ by Duval Patrick, Raytheon got outta town, screwing the Mass. taxpayer’s in the process and moved again, this time to Arizona and Nutso Brewer, where almost every aerospace company in the Country is now either based or has well over 60% of their physical plant located thru Brewer’s literal giveaway of tax credit’s in return for these Companies setting up shop. And as soon as Arizona elects another Governor, one that does not believe in economic ‘giveaway’s’, you can bet the farm that Raytheon is gonna be looking for a new home. When business realizes that it has a responsibility to both it’s investor’s, but also to the public that it depends on for a workforce, then this ‘looking to homestead’ nonsense is gonna come to a halt. To this point, GNP vendors notwithstanding, Cate St and the Millinocket mill have shown remarkably good sense and responsibility in working with the local, and even the State (when it can calm down !) to make both their bio-coal business work and benefit the local community. Get some of the chicken ‘stuff’ finally resolved, by getting the 45 day + invoices paid, and everyone win’s in this. Now is not the time to break open the sud’s on the loading dock on Friday. Focus, stay on track, work the plan and you are gonna wind up a winner, in this case both Cate St and Millinocket. That the rest of Maine gets dragged along is a nice coincidence and one that, if they have any sense about, is best left alone.
It is…monkey business. Ask LeBaboon.
“The news was particularly sour for some: Less than a year ago ACS
announced its Lewiston call center was getting bigger and would hire
more local people…..Get the hope up of some hard working people and then shatter the hope…..Nice, more small jobs that people depend on going in the crapper……..hope Lepage is proud……he should follow the jobs in the crapper
But Governor, I thought Maine was open for business? We are still loosing jobs, and an unemployment rate that has crept up on your watch!
Oh but,but, but don’t forget the one he created for his daughter and the one for his brother-in-law.
So let’s dump all three of them as soon as possible.All that money will help real people.Don’t forget the extra security he gave himself-more paranoia.
He needs it. People like me can bring guns to the State House.
Good point, I guess if it wasn’t for that maybe the unemployment rate would be at 7.5%, so his two family jobs he created is making the unemployment numbers a slow acceleration. Maybe he wants credit for that. He has to get on the horn and find more family to hire.
When LePage is voted out after this term I hate to see what kind of severance package they get.
The only one he deserves is a jail cell.Notice how even the stalwarts/trolls from MHPC don’t dare show their faces.They know the truth.
And haven’t we all noticed that these folk’s have been suddenly so quiet ? Gee, I wonder why ?
More jobs moved to India…
And there are still companies out there seeking qualified, trained workers. Here’s a chance to get out of minimum wage, minimum skill work and improve your life. Don’t wait for any politician to make things better for you, just go do it. Community colleges are ready to help those that will help themselves. You could even be a truck driver (like me) and make more than double the median income in Maine. But only if you stop waiting for Baldacci or LePage to come hold your hand and tell you what to do.
You’re right about a truck driver shortage due to retirements,etc by 2015.The only other field that is set to grow is healthcare due to all the old people.Nurses are going to be retiring in droves too.
More good news brought to you by Moe,Larry and Curly.How’s the new sign and the mural doing?I feel bad for these workers-these aren’t even good jobs that are being disposed of.Good luck to them.
In 2010 when he was running for Governor Paul Richard LePage told us he was going to be creating JOBS, JOBS, JOBS . He has told us over and over since becoming Governor that the primary focus of his administration is JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. He and his tea party republican supporters in the Maine Legislature have crammed through special interest legislation all in the name of JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Yet we continue to see all of the JOBS, JOBS, JOBS saying BYE, BYE, BYE to The State of Maine.
Those of you who crowed the 200 jobs in (and rightly so) be sure to deduct them now that they’re leaving (and rightly so) Does anyone know if any of the call center will remain? (This would be the part begun under previous administrations)
Oh, this is really nice!!! Giving people a 6 wk notice to go find a job……….where. What freaking planet is this company on?? This laying people off and expecting them to “go somewhere” to find a job makes me want to puke!!! These folks have families, mortgages etc and it’s not like they can pack a pair of underwear and a toothbrush and go “find a job!” Welcome to the good old USA. Let’s send some more jobs to China, Vietnam etc………..
And you’ll see the drones whining how everyone should just get a job.New rule:Nobody can say “get a job”unless they can link to at least ten jobs their company is currently hiring for.
Maine “Vacationland” Open for Business(Part-time anyway)
What? A call center laying off or shutting down? Gee, there’s a huge soo-prize! How many subsidies did we have invested in this one?