a gift-basket producer with a call center and distribution facility in Hebron, announced Monday it will turn over its call center operation to an unnamed vendor and lay off fewer than 10 full-time employees.
Ed Dunlap, chief financial officer for the Medford, Ore.-based company, said the third-party vendor will hire the seasonal employees, but they no longer will work at the call center.
The changes will occur between mid-September and mid-October, Dunlap said.
About 800 seasonal employees who worked at the call center, primarily from mid-November to the end of the year, may do the work from home instead.
“It’s not the economy as much as we decided to engage a third-party vendor in this effort,” Dunlap said. “It allows us to utilize their existing network of call centers and allows them to work from home.”
The distribution center, as well as a small manufacturing operation, will remain at the company’s Hopewell site in the Newark Industrial Park.
The employees who worked at the call center will be eligible to be hired by the vendor and have an opportunity to work longer than just during the holiday season, but for clients other than Harry & David.
Harry & David remains in negotiations with the vendor, Dunlap said, with the vendor’s identity possibly revealed when negotiations conclude.
In January 2009, the company announced a reduction of more than 100 jobs, or about 10 percent of its total employees, between the Hebron and Oregon operations.
Only four of the jobs lost were in Hebron, but the company’s other measures included suspension of company matches to 401(k) accounts and bonuses.
The company began making cuts in October 2008, with reductions in the number of seasonal employees hired, wage and salary freezes and other cuts. The company didn’t pay bonuses in 2008 or 2009, it previously announced.
Source:http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20100720/NEWS01/7200317
