Rogers to move 300 international Shaw call centre jobs to Western Canada

Rogers Communications Inc. announced Monday it will relocate around 300 Shaw call centre jobs based overseas to Canada after completing its $26-billion acquisition of the carrier earlier this month.

The positions will be located in B.C., Alberta and Manitoba, where Rogers has pledged to boost the number of “customer-facing” jobs.

“And many of those jobs are going to be right here in B.C. and in Vancouver, specifically,” Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri told CityNews Monday while on a west coast visit.

“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.”

He 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 $26 billion Rogers-Shaw merger was given the green light by the federal government in late March.

“So, 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, and again, it was something that we couldn’t do before because we were separate companies,” Staffieri explained.

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

As part of a set of conditions Ottawa attached to its approval of the merger with Shaw Communications Inc., Rogers must create 3,000 new jobs in Western Canada.

All Rogers customer service positions have been based in Canada since 2020, when it announced it transitioned 150 remaining foreign call centre jobs to Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick.

Rogers said that makes it the only national carrier committed to having its entire call centre team located within the country, which also extends to its Fido and Chatr brands.

Rivals Bell and Telus both partly rely on call centres located in foreign countries.

Rogers has said it also plans to hire 1,000 additional customer service representatives across Canada.

“As a proud Canadian company, we’re committed to investing in Canada,” said Staffieri.

“Bringing these jobs to Canada means all of our customers will be served by a team with deep knowledge of our products and services and roots in the communities where they live and work.”

The company said it plans to transition all overseas Shaw jobs by the end of September, with the first of those call centre positions in place by Canada Day.

Earlier this month, Staffieri also said Rogers would prioritize the creation of digital and technology positions focused on “building networks” in Western Canada.

The deal set out that Rogers must create those positions within five years and maintain them for at least a decade.

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Rogers is the parent company of CityNews.