The Job Market: A View from The Big Game Hunter, Jeff Altman

S.A. call center to lay off 410 workers

A call center company that has been in San Antonio since 1999 said Wednesday that it was closing one of its two local offices, leaving 410 people out of work at least temporarily.

Brett Saks, vice president of human resources for kgb, said he hopes a large number of those workers will find work with the kgb center at 6010 Exchange Parkway, the San Antonio facility that will remain open.

That center will look to hire about 30 people a week for the next 12 weeks, "possibly longer," Saks said in a prepared statement. All employees in good standing at the Wurzbach Road center that is closing will be encouraged to apply for the openings.

Kgb is a worldwide provider of directory assistance, customer care and other call center serviced that was known as INFONXX until last year.

It opened its first San Antonio center in 1999 with 300 employees and added a second office in 2003 during a growth spurt. Officials said in mid-2004, they expected the facilities would grow by 1,700 employees to a total of 2,200 workers.

The layoff, if it stays close to its current number, would be one of the largest the city has seen as the national economic shakeup worsens.

Kgb officials did not use the nosediving economy as a reason for the closing, however. It was instead “a business decision made for operational efficiency” after the lease on the Wurzbach Road facility expired, said spokeswoman Amy Wolfcale.

Labels: kgb, layoffs, San Antonio, Texas

Retailer to lay off 126 workers at its downtown store

Little Rock, Ark.-based Dillard's Inc. has filed notice of plans to lay off more than 100 employees at its store in downtown San Antonio.

Earlier this month, the retailer filed a work-force alignment and retraining notice (WARN) report with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). In the report, Dillard's states that its store at 102 Alamo Plaza will cease operations and will close its doors no later than Aug. 23 of this year.

The filing shows that Dillard's expects a total of 126 employees to be affected by the closing -- including 85 sales associates.

According to the TWC Web site, under federal law employers with 100 or more employees must file a WARN report when the company plans to shut down an employment site with 50 or more workers. An employer must also file a report if it plans to layoff at least 33 percent of its workforce.

The downtown Dillard's store is part of area retail center Rivercenter Mall.

The WARN report comes on the heels of an announcement by Rivercenter's owner, New York-based Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. (AAC), that it had purchased the former Joske's department store building from Dillard's.

That building, which dates back to 1867, spans a total of 550,000 square feet. The Dillard's store occupies about 160,000 square feet of that property.

The Joske's building buy is part of a larger investment that AAC is making to revitalize Rivercenter, which opened its doors in 1988.

At the time that AAC announced the purchase, Dillard's spokeswoman Julie Bull stated that her firm's downtown store would remain open until mid-August. She also stated that the company was working to relocate the Rivercenter employees to the retailer's four remaining stores in San Antonio, as follows: North Star Mall, Ingram Park Mall, The Shops at La Cantera and Rolling Oaks Mall.

Labels: Dillard's, layoffs, San Antonio, Texas

AT&T loss prompts job cuts at GSD&M Idea City

GSD&M Idea City could lay off between 100 and 200 workers in the wake of the loss of AT&T Inc.'s media account, according to a published report this week.

In an interview in Advertising Age, Roy Spence, chairman and CEO of Idea City, would not confirm the number of employees that will be cut. However, he told the magazine that the layoffs largely stem from the advertising agency's loss of AT&T's media business. The communications company consolidated its $3.4 billion media account with advertising firm Mediaedge:cia last month.

An Idea City spokesperson said that employees were notified today. The cuts will largely affect those employees who worked on the AT&T account. The published report said the layoffs could affect between 100 to 200 employees companywide.

At one point, the AT&T account represented about 40 percent of the advertising firm's business, insiders say. It is not known how significant those billings are presently.

Idea City employs about 700 people. The advertising agency has lost more than 100 employees in the past few months.

In the past year, Idea City has parted with longtime clients Chili's Grill & Bar and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

This story originally appeared in the Austin Business Journal, an affiliated publication.