eBay are to close their Vancouver customer service centre, with the loss of around 700 jobs. The move is intended to “consolidate” operations, and will see other CS centres in Salt Lake City and around the world expanded. eBay say it “expects to maintain current support levels and does not anticipate any disruption to service as a result of this change”.
Australian members have been told that the Manila office which currently supplies “a significant level of email and live chat services” will be expanded. The Vancouver office will be closed for 24 hours to allow staff to consider the details of the announcement, which means that phone support may be unavailable to Australians until Friday morning. There are currently no details of support elsewhere being affected: if these are announced later, I’ll update this post.
Of course, this is not the first round of layoffs eBay has had. Last year they made around 10% of their global workforce redundant as well as ending many temporary positions, closed most European national offices. As eBay Ink writes:
My heart goes out to those folks in Vancouver and I wish them the best of luck.
5 Responses
Were those employees simply laid off or did they offer them a chance to relocate to Salt Lake City? Google recently closed an entire office and they offered everyone three choices.
1) Work for someone else
2) Relocate
3) Work from home
Employees have been offered the chance to apply for new jobs at Salt Lake City rather than re-locating.
@ # 2
Does that mean they lose all their accumulated benefits like stock options?
I believe so ebuyerfb. All lost or shortly after termination.
Well none of them will get a job in Salt lake, the new ebay centre is staffed by one man and his wives!!