100 Jobs Created As BT Centre Opens

A major new BT contact centre has opened in Belfast as part of an investment which has so far created 100 jobs.

The centre is based in Belfast’s Riverside Tower and employs customer-service advisors who will work across BT Group’s range of services.

BT’s investment was announced in May this year with support from Invest Northern Ireland’s Jobs Fund.

The Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) has offered training support under its Assured Skills programme.

BT Group has four additional centres in Northern Ireland and employs more than 1,000 people.

Arlene Foster officially opened the new centre on 6 December.

She said: "BT has a long history of investing in Northern Ireland and selected Belfast as the location of its new contact centre due to the calibre of staff available in Northern Ireland and the support offered by Invest NI and DEL.

"The jobs created contribute £2.9m a year in salaries to the economy which is a welcome boost for the business sector in Northern Ireland and for our economy as a whole.

"Invest NI’s Jobs Fund has proved extremely effective in enabling BT to progress and complete its recruitment in under nine months. The Fund has created over 1,750 new jobs across Northern Ireland to date and I would encourage other export focused businesses that are looking to grow and create jobs to get in touch."

Colm O’Neill, CEO BT Northern Ireland, said: "We are delighted that BT Group chose Northern Ireland for this investment – it’s a great endorsement of the environment here that BT can create a unique, high skilled contact centre which can take on a variety of work from different parts of BT’s global operation.

"We are also grateful for the support from Invest NI and DEL which has allowed us to move quickly through the recruitment stage and helped us deliver quality workplace training to our recruits."

(IT)