B.C. to benefit as Rogers CEO pledges to bring back overseas Shaw jobs

Rogers Communications is relocating around 300 Shaw call centre jobs based overseas to Canada, with the CEO telling CityNews many of those positions will move to Western Canada.

“And many of those jobs are going to be right here in B.C., and in Vancouver specifically,” Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri said Monday.

The company says the jobs will also be moved to Alberta and Manitoba from international locations.

As part of its $26-billion acquisition of Shaw earlier this month, the company had also committed to creating 3,000 new jobs in Western Canada.

Staffieri was in Vancouver to outline some of the company’s plans on this side of the country.

“It’s an important market for us,” Staffieri told CityNews.

“We’ve been a national wireless player, we’re the only national player that has a complete 5G network from coast to coast. So we are serious about connecting Canada and making the investments. This is our second-biggest market and our fastest-growing market and so we’ve always been here from a wireless perspective. Now coming together with Shaw we have wireline and home internet products to go with it. And so what we’re able to do now we couldn’t do before, neither one of us could do.”

Read more: Rogers to move 300 international Shaw call centre jobs to Western Canada

Staffieri says the company plans to transition all overseas Shaw jobs by the end of September — and the first of those call centre positions will be in place by Canada Day.

That was a commitment the company made in 2020.

Staffieri says prices have come down 30 per cent in the last four years and in the coming weeks and months, customers will see what kind of value bundles will be available.

The Rogers-Shaw merger was given the green light by the federal government in late March.

With the approval, CEO says he feels the company can now serve customers better.

“What you see is us now being able to come together and bundle our wireless and home products together so the customer can then have one seamless solution for their connectivity needs. Again, it was something that we couldn’t do before because we were separate companies,” he explained, adding, “bundling together the two best is really going to be a win for the customer.”

“So, it’s one package and it gives them more value, more flexibility and ultimately helps continue to bring down prices. Where we may have a Rogers Wireless customer, that doesn’t have Shaw internet, now we can give them a completely seamless solution so that they’re covered both in the home and outside of the home.”

Rogers is the parent company of this station.