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This is the third time in just over a decade TD has closed an Edmonton call centre. The company shut the TD Canada Trust call centre at the mall in 2008, citing a shortage of workers in a hot economy, a step that affected about 140 workers.

The TD Waterhouse investment centre at the mall was shuttered in March 2013, cutting another 130 jobs.

TD’s other Edmonton operations include retail and business banking, as well as wealth management services, Anderson wrote.

Ian O’Donnell, executive director of the Downtown Business Association, said Friday he hadn’t heard about the bank’s latest move.

“Certainly, we would be disappointed if that decision was in fact true. We want to make sure we’re expanding the number of businesses in the downtown, especially at a time when vacancy rates are climbing,” he said.

“Call centres tend to take a decent amount of space. I’m curious to know what impact that will have.”

The city was once a call-centre darling as companies attracted by low costs set up shop — by 2004 there were 140 of them in the Edmonton area, employing more than 7,500 people.

Computer company Dell, enticed in 2004 by a $1-a-year lease for 20 years on a six-hectare site at the Alberta Research Park and property tax rebates, put up a $20-million building that at its peak housed 1,500 people.

But Dell shut the facility four years later as the energy industry grew and wages rose, and other companies followed suit.

In 2016, Statistics Canada listed only 50 call centres with at least one employee in the entire province.

O’Donnell isn’t sure what the closure of the TD Insurance call centre will mean for the city.

“That’s certainly disappointing. TD has been a wonderful tenant and a good partner downtown.”

gkent@postmedia.com

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