Southeast New Brunswick will soon land more than 400 jobs as WestJet announced Monday it will open a call centre in Moncton later this year.
“We are opening a contact centre here in New Brunswick and Moncton, creating more than 400 jobs over the next four years,” said Mark Porter of WestJet.
Porter says Moncton’s bilingual workforce and a substantial investment by the province played an important role the airline’s decision to settle in the city.
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As part of the deal, the province has given WestJet a $1-million forgivable loan along with up to $2.5 million in payroll rebates to be paid out as the positions are created.
“It’s important to note that when we are trying to land jobs from businesses of that caliber, we are competing with many other jurisdictions across the country and probably around the world,” Premier Brian Gallant said at the announcement at the Greater Moncton International Airport.
The contact centre jobs will all be home-based positions within an hour of Moncton, paying roughly $40,000 a year. The company says it will hire about 100 people per year over the next four years.
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“Two thirds will be full time and obviously one third will be pary time,” Porter said.
Calgary call centre to be phased out
Porter says WestJet will phase out its Calgary-based call centre, replacing it with home-based jobs in Moncton.
“We are not closing our call centre in Calgary — we are transitioning, so as people leave or move on to other jobs within WestJet, we will be hiring up within New Brunswick and Moncton,” he said.
In the last month, Premier Gallant has been travelling around the province to announce the creation of roughly 1,000 jobs in the last month alone.
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But opposition leader Bruce Fitch says the Liberals have a long haul ahead to create the promised 5,000 jobs in their mandate.
Fitch says right now more than 3,800 New Brunswickers are out of work. While he says Monday’s job announcement is good news, he says many jobs recently announced are positions yet to be created.
“There is a difference between the jobs announced and the jobs created,” Fitch said.
“I have contacted some of these job announcements and said ‘do you have any positions for the people who are coming in to see me?’ and they say, ‘we are not going to hire until next year or the year after,’ and that is a bit of a concern because people need the jobs today.”
WestJet has already posted some of the positions online and the airline plans to hire 100 people in the first year, with the new call centre slated to open in September.
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