Online auction giant eBay (News - Alert) is closing its Canadian contact center, located in Burnaby, British Columbia, in the Metro Vancouver area, with the contact volume to be handled at its Salt Lake City offices plus at other sites globally.

 

The shutdown, scheduled for September 30, will result in 700 agents and other staff losing their jobs. The company expects to maintain current support levels and does not anticipate any disruption to service as a result of this change. eBay’s customer support operations within its payments and communications businesses, PayPal and Skype (News - Alert), will not be impacted.

 

The Burnaby contact center did not suffer from lack of appeal. It is state of the art, with cool, eye-pleasing interiors, free of glare, and virtually no sound; the agents principally use e-mail rather than voice. It is located on major transit routes and highways, and near a large college and shopping center.

 

eBay is the latest company to pull contact centers out of Canada, including from British Columbia. West slammed the doors on its Victoria area center last year. Convergys (News - Alert) and Dell have closed centers in the country as well. The Canadian dollar has risen sharply against the U.S. dollar in recent years, exceeding it at one point in 2008, making operations there less viable.

 

Site selectors report that Canada has several key benefits as a nearshore location: a somewhat better educational system, excellent customer service culture, and the government-sponsored healthcare system that removes the benefits costs and makes working part-time more appealing. Yet those advantages are not for many firms enough to make up the spread and offset the comfort factor of locating/keeping operations in other countries.

 

eBay like most businesses has also been rocked by a tough economy. Its latest financial report, released in April, cited the downturn behind a drop in net income in 1Q 2009 to $357 million from $460 million in 1Q 2008.

 

“We are working aggressively to deliver a better customer experience for eBay buyers and sellers,” said Chad O'Meara, vice president, Customer Service, eBay Marketplaces. “While it is a difficult decision to close our Vancouver facility, we believe that consolidating our North America customer service operations will help accelerate our efforts to continually exceed buyer and seller expectations.”

 

The eBay contact center closure has had impact despite Metro Vancouver’s large (over 2 million) population. Despite the fanfare around the 2010 Winter Olympics, British Columbia including Metro Vancouver has been hard hit by the downturn.

 

The shuttering has, not unexpectedly been turned into a weapon in the province’s election scheduled for May 12. The Globe and Mail reported that Opposition New Democratic Leader Carole James pointed to the eBay center shutdown as evidence to support her party’s claim that Liberal Leader and sitting premier Gordon Campbell and his government has not been doing enough on the economy.

 

 “’I'd like to see him take some time to talk to those [eBay] workers,’” she said. “’Gordon Campbell continues to say everything is fine while we continue to see these kinds of job losses, we see forest workers lose their job, we see some of the worst job losses in the country, here in British Columbia. So the first thing is to acknowledge there is a problem.’”

 

In response Campbell said B (News - Alert).C. businesses are going through difficult times but his government's tax regimes have helped ensure things aren’t worse.

 

“’For the 700 people, that is not a good thing... I understand how difficult it will be for them, but I think they know we have done everything we can,’” the Liberal leader told the newspaper.