The establishment of a customer call center for Dominion Virginia Power in Halifax County could lead to yet more jobs coming to economically distressed Southside Virginia.
Hampton-based Faneuil Inc. will employ 150 people — and invest $1.5 million — in the Halifax customer service center project announced Thursday.
"A number of people are getting good news at Christmastime," said Mike Sexton, executive director of the Halifax County Industrial Development Authority. "They've been contacted. They know they have the job."
Having a job has outsized meaning in rural Halifax, where unemployment was 9.3 percent in October. The county has a population of 36,000 and a workforce of 15,000, Sexton said.
The Halifax center will start operation Feb. 1, said Anna Van Buren, Faneuil's president and CEO. "We'll have 18 people there Jan. 6, and ramp up to about 150 by July 2012."
"We'll try to bring other work there as well," she said. "We're a growing company."
With the Halifax center, the state's largest electric utility is relocating all its customer care work to Virginia, said Dominion Virginia Power spokesman David Botkins.
"When Dominion says they're going to do it, they do it," Sexton said. "A Dominion project will stay in the community a long time."
The power company has a five-year contract with Faneuil, officials said. "We're not going to lose that contract," Van Buren said. "We've made significant investment in Halifax. We plan on staying there."
A provider of customer support for government and business, Faneuil already employs 150 people at its call center in Martinsville, which handles work for Dominion Virginia Power and other clients.
"We're bringing other jobs there," Van Buren said of the Martinsville center. "We'll certainly reach 250" employees within about a year and a half.
People interested in working at the call center should contact the Virginia Employment Commission, officials said.
The new center will not affect employment at Dominion Virginia Power's in-house customer service operations in the Richmond and Norfolk regions, said Becky Merritt, the company's director of customer care and energy management.
However, the Virginia utility will transfer its work from a vendor-operated call center in Beaumont, Texas, to Halifax, Merritt said.
"They will be handling our credit and payment assistance calls," she said of the Halifax operation.
The call center is located in the county industrial development authority's Riverstone Technology Park outside South Boston.
Representing Gov. Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling joined business and government leaders in South Boston on Thursday for the economic development announcement. Southside Virginia has struggled with some of the state's highest jobless rates.
The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission approved $800,000 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds for the project.
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