Interested caller

Thunder Bay is getting another call as StarTek hangs up on the city.

Charlottetown based On-Line Support will hold a career fair in the former StarTek site from March 29-31. With up to 300 jobs on the line, OLS vice-president John Hooper said the key will be Thunder Bay’s job market and availability.

"We’re hoping that the job fair later on this month will give us the good news we’re looking for," said Hooper. "We’re pretty excited and we’re pretty confident that the career fair will be a success."

To meet the needs of their client, Hooper said it will be critical for roughly 20 per cent of the employees to be bilingual. Hooper said everything about the StarTek site in Victoriaville Mall and Thunder Bay is a "natural fit" for OLS which has call centres in Timmins and Pembroke in Ontario.

Community Economic Development Commission senior development officer Richard Pohler said OLS has been interested in Thunder bay for the past few weeks, even coming to look at the facility. From fibre optics and even a diesel generator so the centre can function during power outages, the former StarTek site is ready for a company like OLS.

"It’s completely prepared and ready to be used as a call centre operation," Pohler said. "Based on their (OLS) assessment very little new capital would have to be expended to make it operational so it is truly a turn-key operation that way. The facility’s equipped right down to the workstations and the PCs that they require."

Pohler also stressed the key to bringing OLS to the city will be finding enough bilingual employees.

Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president Harold Wilson said it would be great for former StarTek employees to have an opportunity to work with OLS. To fill the bilingual component, Wilson said it’s a matter of letting everyone in Thunder Bay know about the job fair.

"Really it’s up to us to let folks know that there’s an opportunity there and be able to make sure that as many people as possible know about this opportunity," Wilson said.

Hooper said if Thunder Bay meets the labour needs for OLS, a "perfect world" would have the call centre running by late August.