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Collection Agencies Add Scarce Jobs in Hard-Hit Region
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| Contributor | Servo |
| Last Edited | Servo Apr 03, 2008 09:22am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Friday, March 21, 2008 03:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | In an unremarkable strip mall in the south end of this city, workers were installing 144 new desks last month at Capital Management Services. About 50 feet away, a dozen fresh hires were taking a two-week training course.
The company is rushing to double the staff, to 400, by next year and fill the additional 10,000 square feet of space in the building, which still smells of new carpet. The need for workers is so acute that the company leases billboards that say, “Call Today. Start Monday.”
Buffalo, New York’s second-largest city, has long been plagued by plant closings, an exodus of residents and urban decay. But it has become one of the nation’s leading hubs for debt collectors, a shaky transformation powered by the same forces crippling most cities: the nation’s mortgage crisis and slumping economy, which have pushed consumers further into debt. As a result, an increasing number of banks, credit card companies and other lenders are turning to the dozens of collection agencies that have proliferated here.
“With everything that’s happening now, people are living off their credit cards,” said Joel Castle, one of the pioneers in the industry and a consultant to Northstar Companies, which employs about 400 workers in nearby Cheektowaga. “So this business is going to explode. We’re anticipating a bubble.” |
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