By Sherry Koonce

The News staff writer

About 350 Sitel call center employee who were looking at the loss of their jobs will remain employed.

Early Monday Sitel officials announced they would stay open instead of closing in August as was earlier announced, Floyd Batiste, Port Arthur Economic Development director, said.

Sitel employs 409 employees at its site on FM 365.

Batiste said he received a call from Sitel at about 7:30 a.m. stating the center was going to renew their contract with a cell phone company. When Sitel announced it would be closing in late June, the company was under the impression that contract was not going to renew.

“The cell phone customer who had chosen to end their service with Sitel has renewed their service and will stay. This is indeed good news for the area” Batiste said.

The new contract will allow Sitel to keep about 350 of the company’s 409 employees on the payroll.

Retaining the jobs locally will keep some $6 million generated in payroll in the Port Arthur area, Batiste said.

In addition to retaining the jobs, Port Arthur’s EDC was actively seeking another call center to come in and replace Sitel.

Batiste said the EDC will continue those efforts. Next month, another call center is scheduled to look at the community. Though originally planning to look at the Sitel site, Batiste said the EDC will show the new company the old Spherion building in Nederland.

About three years ago, two call centers operated in the Mid-County area: Spherion and ClientLogic. Together, the companies employed about 1,000 to 1,200 people.

Spherion was later purchased by ClientLogic, a company that had locations in both Port Arthur and Nederland. In January 2007 ClientLogic acquired Sitel and decided to keep the worldwide name. Later that year the company consolidated the two offices, moved to the Port Arthur location and combined their workforce.

Batiste said if the new company, whose name has not been disclosed, goes into Nederland, Port Arthur will still benefit because employees would spend dollars shopping in the area.