Call-center layoffs

April 3, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Call-center layoffs

AMHERST, Ohio

A Colorado operator of customer call centers for other companies is laying off 585 workers at a facility in Ohio.

TeleTech Holdings Inc. of Englewood, Colo., said Thursday that the sole client of the call center in northern Ohio’s Lorain County has decided it no longer wants the services. County officials say the center handled calls for the T-Mobile wireless company and that T-Mobile has decided to handle the work in-house.

3-D without glasses

TOKYO

Sharp’s latest 3-D displays deliver bright, clear imagery without the cumbersome glasses usually required for such technology. Now the bad news: They only work on a 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) screen held one foot (30 centimeters) from the viewer’s face.

Sharp Corp. demonstrated liquid crystal screens Friday for mobile devices that showed 3-D animation, touch-panel screens that switched from one 3-D photo to another and a display connected to a 3-D video camera.

The technology may be applied to TVs in the future, said Executive Managing Officer Yoshisuke Hasegawa. But he acknowledged it now works better when the distance between the viewer and the screen is fixed.

Interest rates rise

NEW YORK

The biggest increase in jobs in three years pushed interest rates to their highest level since before the worst days of the credit crisis in 2008.

With the stock market closed for Good Friday, investors had a shortened day of trading in the bond market to react to the Labor Department’s report that employers added the most jobs in March since before the recession began in December 2007.

Mortgage purchase

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.

Carl Icahn has bought the remaining half of the $500 million mortgage on the three Trump Entertainment Resorts casinos he’s trying to buy out of bankruptcy.

He also won a $10 million interest payment in the transaction.The billionaire investor, who previously owned 51 percent of the mortgage issued by Dallas-based Beal Bank, agreed last week to buy the remaining 49 percent at a 7.5 percent discount, according to court documents.

AirTran CEO gets a raise

NEW YORK

The CEO and president of AirTran Holdings Inc., which operates AirTran Airways, saw his total compensation rise 30 percent in 2009, according to an Associated Press analysis of a regulatory filing Friday.Robert Fornaro received total compensation valued at about $2 million last year, compared with $1.5 million in 2008. His base salary rose 5 percent to $525,000, from $500,000 the year before. Fornaro’s bonus more than doubled to $785,000, from $375,000 the year before.AirTran was one of only a handful of airlines that made money last year. Larger rivals like American and Delta posted big losses.

Associated Press