Sykes will close Spokane Valley call center in May

Sykes Enterprises, which once had more than 300 area call center workers, will close its Spokane Valley office in late May, the company announced.

The Tampa-based company said its last 148 Spokane Valley workers will lose their jobs when it shuts down its remaining area call center.

In 2010, Sykes acquired Pennsylvania-based ICT Group, which had set up a large call center at the University City Mall in the 1990s. At one time ICT Group had close to 1,200 jobs there.

In 2012, Sykes laid off about 170 workers at its Spokane Valley site.

Sykes Enterprises spokeswoman Andrea Burnett Thomas said the decision is part of routine business adjustments. The Spokane Valley jobs are not being transferred to another city, Thomas said.

Sykes has more than 80 call centers in more than 20 countries, she said. Most of its clients are in telecommunications, financial services and tech services.

Thomas said she could not divulge details of severance packages for the Spokane Valley workers. They will be invited, she added, to apply for at-home call service contracts. Like many other call center companies, Sykes uses home-based workers who provide the same inbound or outbound calls as office workers do.