The strong Canadian dollar is creating some uncertainty in Nova Scotia’s call centre sector.

"The Canadian dollar is going to impact a lot of businesses and the call centre industry will not be exempt," Stephen Lund, CEO of Nova Scotia Business Inc., the province’s business development agency, said in an interview Tuesday.

"The relative rise in the Canadian dollar has hurt the province’s competitive position."

Mr. Lund, who was in New York on a financial-sector trade mission, was commenting after the news Monday that Teletech Holdings of Colorado will lay off 485 staff at its Halifax call centre by the end of April if it doesn’t find a new client for the site.

Teletech, which signed an $11.8-million payroll rebate deal with the province in 2003 tied to creating 1,495 jobs, said a client at the Halifax call centre decided, for undisclosed reasons, to move that business out of Halifax. Another Teletech call centre in Amherst wasn’t affected by the Halifax decision.

Teletech spokeswoman K. C. Higgins said the company hopes to find new work for the Halifax location and that the layoff decision wasn’t part of a plan to move business out of Canada.

Convergys Corp., another U.S. call centre operator with operations in Canada, including Nova Scotia, is considering such a move to cut costs...

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