The Main Street call center in Springfield will permanently close in December, leaving dozens without jobs.
SPRINGFIELD – About 200 local TD Bank workers will have to find new jobs when the Springfield call center closes in December, part of a consolidation plan that calls for shifting duties performed here to a new Southern facility, according to bank officials.
Bank spokesman Jimmy Hernandez told 22News that bank officials have decided to consolidate their call centers to three locations, in South Carolina, Maine and New Jersey. That means the around-the-clock Springfield call center at 1441 Main St. will be shuttered by the end of this year, he told the TV station. The bank at that location will remain open.
Employees received the bad news during a Tuesday night meeting at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place Hotel. The employees are eligible to apply for any of the 40 currently vacant positions at TD Bank branches throughout the region. Those unable to find new jobs by December will be offered severance packages. Details were not immediately available.
The call center consolidation plan comes just two weeks after TD Bank — the fourth-largest in Massachusetts in terms of total assets — announced plans to expand into Boston. In late April, CEO Ed Clark said he hopes to add at least 60 new branches throughout the state over the next few years, including 10 in the city of Boston. TD Bank currently has 159 branches in Massachusetts, including 18 in Hampden County.
"You give us 10 new sites, we'll put 10 new stores next to it," Clark told a group of Boston-area business executives in a meeting last month.
Hernandez told 22News that TD's regional bank branches, including the one located at 1441 Main St., will remain open. TD Bank will host employee job fairs at the Springfield call center over the next few months, he said.
Abc40 reports that TD Bank inherited a 467,000-square-foot office in Greenvile, S.C., and the duties performed by Springfield call center employees will be shifted to that facility. It was unclear if local employees were offered opportunities to relocate to the new Southern call center.
TD Bankgroup is a subsidiary of the Canada-based Toronto-Dominion Bank, which has built up more than 1,300 branches across the eastern U.S. since roughly 2005.
Check back with MassLive for more updates on this developing story.