TRUMBULL COUNTY Telemarketer has hired former MCI employees

With bonuses, the company said full-time employees average $10.50 per hour.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
WARREN -- A Pittsburgh telemarketing company opening a call center in Warren already has hired 125 MCI employees who would likely have been left jobless when the MCI Niles call center closes next month.
Reese Teleservices is conducting a job fair from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and tomorrow at the Avalon Inn, Howland, with plans to hire another 125 new workers, spokesman Greg Rajchel said.
But Rajchel revealed Tuesday what government officials and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce did not know: Reese already had recruited half of its planned work force of 250 at job fairs held inside MCI's center on Youngstown-Warren Road.
MCI had a local work force of about 700 when it announced plans in March to shut down the Niles center, citing reduced business related to the national "do not call" legislation.
Opened in 1999, the MCI facility has employed as many as 1,200 and was the Mahoning Valley's largest call center.
Business has been growing for Reese, Rajchel said, despite the new restrictions brought on by the "do not call" list.
MCI contract
The company had been considering a new center in Trumbull County, he said, but the deal was clinched when Reese landed a contract with MCI to continue some of the telemarketing its Niles center workers had been doing. MCI has been a Reese customer for about five years, Rajchel said.
Reese likes the Warren location because it is within driving distance from the company's headquarters.
The company has 11 call centers, including two others in Ohio, one in Steubenville and one in Norwalk near Sandusky. A new 250-employee center is scheduled to open this week in Hopewell, Pa.
About 70 percent of the jobs will be full-time; 30 percent are part-time. Training begins June 9, and the first day of live calling is set for June 16.
Part-timers will earn $6.50 an hour to start; full-timers who work 36 hours a week or more will earn $7.50 an hour, Rajchel said, but with sales and performance bonuses the average full-time Reese worker earns $10.50 an hour.
He added that Reese expects its local payroll to average $6 million a year, and the company is investing between $300,000 and $400,000 in improvements at the Warren center, located at 3709 Youngstown-Warren Road. The company did not request tax abatements or other government assistance.
Reese has signed a three-year lease for the building. "We're planning for a long-term relationship with the Warren community," Rajchel continued.
vinarsky@vindy.com