Integrity Solution Services in Cape Girardeau will lay off all of its 420 employees and shut down its call center on September 10.
The call center was formerly known as NARS. The Cape Girardeau call center catered to one large client who no longer needs the company’s services. That left the Cape Girardeau facility with nothing to do.
Cape Girardeau mayor Harry Rediger was blindsided by the announcement and said he just learned about it Wednesday morning. Looking forward, he said several potential call center operators have looked at locating in Cape Girardeau.
“There are call centers in the region that are looking for opportunities,” Rediger said. “So it will be a building we will be marketing aggressively very soon.”
Integrity Solution Services Vice President for Human Resources Stacy Spalding said the company is pursuing other customers in an effort to keep the facility open. They are also entertaining discussions from any company that wants to acquire the facility and employees.
“Both of those things are certainly on the table,” Spalding said, “and we would be more than happy to see either one of those things take place inside of the 60 days.”
She added that employees will be given first consideration for positions at the company’s other facilities, and they will provide on-site job fairs and job search training.
“And we can also hopefully help them hone in on their job seeking skills, as some of them have been with us for many, many years and probably haven’t done an interview for a while. So we’re going to help them with that as well,” Spalding said.
The company’s other call centers will not be affected. NARS first opened in Cape Girardeau in 2007.
