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Saskatchewan Strengths:
Work Ethic, Loyalty
Saskatchewan's call center industry is small, but it's growing. The province is a particularly attractive location from the standpoint of the labor issues so critical to call center success.

"We have an excellent work ethic, and people in Saskatchewan are very loyal to their companies," says Greg Ing, Regina-based manager of call centers for telecom provider SaskTel (www.sasktel.com). "We have a very high average tenure with both part- and full-time employees. And the majority of people coming out of university will remain here if there's suitable employment." The provincial unemployment rate is about 6 percent, he says.

Saskatchewan is a comparatively small market. But that can be a strength, Ing points out.

"Saskatoon has about 220,000 people, and there are about 200,000 here in Regina," he says. "Businesses that locate in Saskatchewan are not lost in the big picture. They're recognized as providing valuable employment. We don't have an overabundance of call centers, so there's not a lot of competition between centers for employees -- and you don't have the job-hopping that you do in some places."

Hewlett-Packard, Seagate
Software Set Up in BC
British Columbia (BC) -- Canada's westernmost province -- might not spring to mind when one thinks of Canadian call center sites. But maybe it should.

"BC is becoming increasingly a topic of interest with location consultants for call centers," reports Kathryn Seeley, with LINX BC Call Center Team/Telus Communications. "We're just getting on the map from an exposure point of view." Still, the province has already attracted some call centers, including Hewlett-Packard, Seagate Software and Accpac International.

BC is targeting specific types of call centers, including technical support desks and financial services centers, plus service bureaus that handle those types of calls.

"We have multilingual skills, plus a West Coast time zone location," she says. "Unemployment is anywhere from 8 percent to 17 percent, depending on where you go in BC. At the same time, the education level here is high. The latest figure I have is that 67,000 unemployed people in our province have a post-secondary certificate or university degree."

LINX BC is a call center initiative involving several communities, including Kamloops, Kelowna, Victoria, Nanaimo and Prince George. Seeley says a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study reveals that those communities have significant cost advantages over many North American locations.

Vancouver, though not an active member of the LINX initiative, is well-positioned as a high-tech call center location.