Millennium 1 Solutions looking to hire around 300 people in Sudbury

A job boost for Sudbury Millennium 1 Solutions sets up a call centre in Sudbury and its looking to hire 200 people. Rick Wyman reports.

With an unemployment rate of close to 7% in Sudbury, a new call centre in the city may be able to put some people to work.

An Ontario-based company is investing $2.5 million dollars in the facility.

Millennium 1 Solutions opened a new call centre firm earlier this month. People are currently on site for training.

“Unfortunately, I was unemployed for approximately four months,” said Sharon Rogers, a newly hired employee.

Rogers knows all about the frustration of looking for work.

Now, she's got a job and will be filling one of the seats at Millennium 1 Solutions’ Sudbury office; taking calls from customers of various companies.

Millennium 1 told CTV Sudbury’s strong bilingual presence made the city an excellent fit.

“Essentially, having a strong population of bilingual employees is important to us,” said Holly Abbott, Millennium 1 corporate communications.

“Bilingual is really critical.”

While only 22 people are in the building today, the ultimate goal is to have anywhere from 250 to 300 people filling these seats by the end of the year.

Company recruiters are already working on that.

“I'm so excited to be able to come in, to build that culture and team engagement,” said Penny Smith, Millennium 1 Solutions recruiter.

Millennium 1 has been around for 40 years under various names.

It currently runs five call centres, employing about 1,700 people in the province.

The company's stability is enticing to some of the newly hired workers CTV spoke with.

“I was laid off about two and half months ago, and M-1 is a great place to work. It's a perfect opportunity for me and it fits in with my upcoming career path,” said Helena Burton.

“There wasn't a lot of flexibility out there for stay at home moms finding new jobs, and I found out Millennium 1 was hiring, and I was definitely interested in getting to know the company and they're pretty flexible,” added Meaghan Landry.

For Rogers, learning a new skill set, beats looking for work.

“I've met new people, new friends, couldn't ask for any better.”

Open since May 1, the company is looking to begin taking in-bound calls on its first major contract shortly.