Jonesboro attracts call center, 500 jobs
Posted on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
StarTek Inc. will open a call center in Jonesboro this fall that eventually will employ more than 500 workers, the Denverbased firm said Monday.
StarTek said it has signed a lease to operate the call center in a 55, 000 square-foot former grocery store at 2908 S. Caraway Road in Jonesboro. The publicly traded company answers inbound customer-service calls primarily for companies in the telephone, cable and satellite industries.
Matt Brekke, StarTek’s director of marketing, said the company considers several things when deciding where to put an office, including educational institutions, population and the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate in Craighead County was 5. 2 percent in February, slightly higher than the state’s rate of 5. 0 percent.
“Beyond the perfect mix, it really was the partnerships we developed,” Brekke said, including with the Jonesboro City Council, Crowley’s Ridge College, Arkansas State University and the Arkansas Workforce Center.
The schools and the Workforce Center will help train employees for StarTek.
Mark Young, chief executive officer of the Jonesboro Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the key factor that helped Jonesboro land StarTek was the labor force.
“We feel like the quality of the labor force is a great asset we have in Jonesboro,” Young said.
Jonesboro, the fifth-largest city in Arkansas with a population of 60, 500, has focused in recent years on recruiting food-processing companies. It is home to more than five major food processors employing more than 1, 600 people.
“It’s important in communities that there is a diversified economic base,” Young said. “Every community needs a variety of jobs, and we’re fortunate that we have that in Jonesboro. This company will complement the jobs we currently have.” Brekke declined to say how many employees StarTek will have when it opens in the fall. The call center will begin with less than 500 employees but will build up to 500 over time, Brekke said.
He also declined to say what the average income will be for workers at the call center, other than to say salaries will be competitive. Similar centers in Arkansas have paid from $ 8 to $ 16 an hour, the latter being an unusually high salary that Southwest Airlines paid union employees at its reservations center in Little Rock before closing it in 2004.
In the past 10 to 15 years, the state has attracted many of the relatively low-paying call centers that employ thousands of Arkansans.
The jobs pay well below Arkansas’ goal of reaching the national per capita income level of $ 38, 611 for 2007, but they do provide needed employment. A $ 10 per hour job would pay $ 20, 800 per year with no other considerations such as overtime.
The state’s per capita income was $ 30, 060 last year.
Jeff Collins, a partner with Streetsmart Data Services in Springdale, said that it is relatively easy to find people to fill jobs for call centers.
“There has always been this short-term, long-term payoff,” said Collins, former director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. “In the short term, obviously people need jobs, they need to feed their families and pay their bills. And the economy needs their ability to consume.
“ But the flip side is that while you’re doing this, you also need to be preparing people for jobs which are higher paying and more in demand and hopefully you’re creating those jobs simultaneously.
The problem is that in some ways you’re stuck in a Catch-22. As a state, if you have to put a lot of energy into the short-term goal, which is just to generate employment for people, you’re unlikely to be able to put a lot of energy into creating higherpaying jobs and preparing the work force for higher-paying jobs. It’s a classic economic problem, quite frankly.” Brekke also declined to indicate what incentives StarTek will receive to locate in Jonesboro. Joe Holmes, a spokesman for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said StarTek probably will qualify for incentives from the state, but it is too early to know how much in incentives will be available.
Young said Jonesboro was contacted about six months ago by a site-location company that was evaluating several cities.
StarTek, which began business as a packaging company in 1987 in Greeley, Colo., has 8, 200 employees in 20 offices in seven states and Canada. It had revenue of $ 245 million last year, up slightly from $ 238 million in 2006. It had a loss of $ 2. 8 million last year compared with net income of $ 5. 8 million in 2006.
In the past four years, StarTek’s stock has declined, after a high of about $ 40 a share in January 2004. It closed at $ 8. 92 on Monday, down 1 cent from Friday, in light trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
