Sykes Enterprises Inc., a global outsourcing firm, has informed Sterling officials that it plans to cut about 100 area jobs by May 8.
Sykes, based in Tampa, Fla., lost an unspecified contract handled by customer-service workers in Sterling, said Richard O’Connell, executive director of the Logan County Economic Development Corp.
“It is because they lost that part of their business,” he said. “They are not going to close the facility.”
With 320 employees, Sykes ranks as the county’s third-largest private-sector employer after the Sterling Regional MedCenter and Wal-Mart.
It will still rank third even after the cuts.
“We don’t have too many businesses employing more than 100 people here,” O’Connell said.
Sterling is the county seat of Logan, better known for its agricultural activity than industry. But Sykes won accolades when it brought higher-paying technology-service jobs to the area in the 1990s.
Former Sterling Mayor Doug Jones and his wife, Laurie, founded Jones Technologies, a call-tracking-software firm. They sold the firm to Sykes in 1992.
Sykes expanded its Sterling call center, pioneering the concept of technical support via the phone.
The company also set up a call center in Greeley but closed that facility in 2002, letting go of about 400 workers.
The loss of even 100 jobs could hit Logan County hard. The county’s unemployment rate stood at 6.1 percent in January, representing 706 people actively looking for work, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
Holding everything else constant, the loss of 100 jobs would push the county’s unemployment rate closer to 7 percent, still below the state’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 8.2 percent in January.
Sykes, a publicly traded company, has more than 51,000 workers operating in 24 countries, according to its website.
The company did not respond to a phone or e-mail request for comment.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
