UPS announced last Friday the closure of its call centre in Tallaght, Dublin, with the loss of 200jobs due to the lack of multi-lingual staff in Ireland.
The call centre will in future be sub-contracted to an external provider but the planned newlocation was not disclosed.
UPS said in a statement that it has become increasingly difficult to find local employeeswith the necessary languages. This resulted in recruiting employees from abroad and relocating themto Dublin. Call centre staff handle inquiries from customers in Ireland, France, Belgium, theNetherlands, Switzerland and the UK.
“As these employees generally return to their home countries after a relatively short periodin Ireland, they do not stay with UPS long, adding further to the expense of staffing the Tallaghtfacility,” UPS explained. “When coupled with the increasing costs year-on-year of running theoperation, the advantages of having a call centre in the Dublin area have reduced significantlyover time.”
UPS said it will close the operation by 31 May next year. Some 60 employees will be offeredpositions in other UPS operations in the Dublin area, but the rest will be phased out, starting inOctober.
The company added that the redundancy payment on offer would be “significantly” above thestatutory minimum, which is two weeks pay per year of service. It said the severance deal was beinggiven in recognition of the “important contribution that each affected employee has made”.
The decision to close was “very difficult” but in the current economic climate UPS had tolook at ways to improve competitiveness, Nigel Goodson, director of human resources, UPS UK andIreland, said in the statement.
UPS opened its Tallaght call centre in 1996, employing about 260 workers. It also has 300workers at a billing facility in Ballymount, Dublin, and employs 260 staff at its small packageoperations and a further 30 in freight operations in Dublin, Shannon and Cork. The company insistedthat there was no threat to workers at its billing and small package operations.
