North Fulton is known for good schools, manicured subdivisions and growing status as a regional magnet for technology companies. It’s also become a hub for call centers, a lower-wage industry being drawn to the area.
Verizon Wireless underscored that trend Monday when it announced plans for 430 new jobs in Georgia, about half of them at call centers in Alpharetta and Milton. Even Jonathan LeCompte, the Verizon regional president who announced the decision, quipped in an interview that you don’t usually see these types of jobs in neighborhoods “surrounded by horses.”
Bluechip firms such as Hewlett-Packard and healthcare IT giant McKesson have made the Ga. 400 corridor a center of regional headquarters. But the region is also home to numerous data centers – massive complexes of computing power – and call centers such as the ones Verizon plans to expand.
Call center jobs are often low-wage, particularly compared to the high-powered salaries that jobs such as programming command. LeCompte said the typical pay for Verizon’s call center jobs range from $28,000 to $31,000, plus benefits. But they play an increasingly important role.
Many of the metro Atlanta call centers handle inbound customer service inquiries or provide technical assistance to workers in the field. Workers in these types of centers are generally higher skilled and better compensated than outbound sales call workers, which tend to pop up near college campuses or sparsely populated areas.
A call center isn’t as sexy as some of the state’s recent jobs recruitment wins – such as a Caterpillar manufacturing plant or new Gulfstream aerospace jobs – but these service jobs help fill out the region’s employment base and bring economic diversity to the area, said Mercer University economist Roger Tutterow.
On the other hand, they do little to reverse a long slide in Georgia’s ranking for per capita income, which had fallen to 40th in the nation in 2012, after rising to 25th in the late 1990s.
Verizon also plans to hire retail, network and IT staffers, mostly in North Fulton, along with dozens of retail jobs in Albany, Augusta, Macon and Savannah. The company said it hoped to fill the jobs by the year’s end.
The Verizon news follows other notable recent corporate expansions along the Ga. 400 spine, including AirWatch, State Farm and Fiserv, which announced last month it would add 500 jobs and consolidate from several locations around the metro area to one in Alpharetta. Those moves involve a mix of technology and administrative jobs.
“What we’re sensing is a lot of the larger corporations are streamlining their operations, consolidating and bringing jobs to where they fell like they can recruit and retain (talent),” said Al Nash, executive director of Progress Partners, the economic development arm of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce.
That type of consolidation also brings call center jobs to the region. State Farm, which is undergoing a massive expansion in Dunwoody near Perimeter Mall, already has added scores of call center jobs. Coca-Cola a few years ago relocated a regional call center to Alpharetta.
Alpharetta is home to 600 technology firms, and neighboring communities host another 300, including both hometown firms and outlets for larger operations. Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle claims it is the “highest concentration of technology jobs anywhere in the Southeast.” Gov. Nathan Deal credits the industry’s growth with helping to support a reviving Georgia economy.
“These jobs would not have been possible without growth in the technology sector,” Deal said. “It’s a booming industry here in the state of Georgia and today is another example of how it’s prospering.”
For Verizon, Alpharetta and neighboring Milton made a compelling case for the expanded call centers. LeCompte said the firm even turned down the offer of government incentives to announce the expansion, which also includes retail and network sales jobs in other parts of the state.
“Our business is booming,” said LeCompte. “This is one for us where it’s not needed. Our business has flourished, we’re profitable, and hopefully the government can use those for other areas.”
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