New Rogers call centre to bring 350 jobs to Kelowna

Calling Kelowna's unemployed.

Rogers Communications has chosen the Okanagan city as the site for its new British Columbia customer solution centre, expected to open in the summer of 2020.

The centre will inject 350 jobs into the local economy and, according to the company, that number is expected to grow to 500 over time.

Renovations on a32,000 square foot facility on Dickson Avenue in the Landmark District are expected to begin early next year and the company says it will begin holding job fairs and hiringemployeesin the spring.

Rick Sellers, president of the B.C. region for Rogers Communications, said most of the job postings will be for customer service representatives and the centre is expected to receive about onemillion calls a year.

Sellers said the company choseto set up shop in Kelowna after it did an"exhaustive analysis" of the region and determined there are plenty of workers in the area with the skills Rogers needs.

Competitive salaries

"We found there was a lot of talented people there," Sellers said, adding he doesn't anticipate any issues finding employees and those hired will be well compensated.

"We are confident the packages we will be putting together for people in Kelowna are very competitive," Sellers said in a phone interview Thursday morning on CBC's Daybreak South.

In a statement, Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran welcomed the investment to the city.

"With ourgrowing technology sector, along with every other kind of business, communications technology is essential to keeping our local economy going," said Basran.

Rogers is Canada's largest wireless carrier and includes the Fido and chatr brands.

"We're proud to grow our presence in the province and tap into the incredible Okanagan workforce," Eric Agius, senior vice-president of Rogers customer care, said in a news release.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rogers generated nearly $1 billion toward B.C.'s gross domestic product in 2018.