Layoffs Looming at Bentonville Call Center

A Bentonville call center operated by the Georgia-based computer software company NCR will close at the end of November, leaving more than 100 employees out of work, the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal has learned.

When asked about the closure Tuesday, Tom Ginn, vice president of economic development for the Bentonville-Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce, said he could not speak for NCR, a provider of consumer transaction technologies.

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Ginn said. “It’s their decision if they want to announce any action they are going to take.”

Ginn did confirm that chamber officials met with NCR representatives in October, but did not divulge the nature of those talks.

Via email, NCR spokesperson Tim Henschel released this statement:

“We regularly assess the prevailing market climate and our needs, aligning our business to ensure NCR remains a strong, growing company. Our policy is to not comment on these details.”

According to a source, the location at 1510 N. Walton Blvd. is set to close at the end of the month and operations are to be moved overseas. The source also said that on Tuesday, employees were filling out paperwork to qualify for unemployment benefits and that they were being assisted by personnel from the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services.

Doyce Hill, DWS area operations chief, did not specify exactly what business it was or where the business was located, but did say DWS personnel conducted a “workshop” to assist a company that had recently laid off its employees.

Hill said Gov. Mike Beebe has a program called the Dislocated Worker Task Force to assist employees with unexpected layoffs.

NCR, headquartered in Duluth, Ga., employs over 26,000 employees and does business in 180 countries. The global leader in consumer transaction technologies, NCR enables more than 450 million transactions daily across the retail, financial, travel, hospitality, telecom and technology industries.