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CHESTER COUNTY, Pa. -- Hard economic times are striking one of Chester County's largest employers.

Fox 29 News has learned that QVC is making major cutbacks, including 160 employees who were laid off Wednesday -- from vice-presidents to producers to workers in the call center for the electronic retailing giant.

Workers said they had no idea the layoffs were coming until they showed up for work Wednesday.

QVC is reportedly shutting down it's entire West Chester call center.


By Jamie Durant
Published: November 13, 2008

QVC announced plans Wednesday to hire 200 workers in Florence County, but also to lay off 900 elsewhere.

Florence County Economic Development Joe W. King said the new hires are not the only improvement to the company being made in Florence County.

“They’re going and making additional investments that have already been approved,” he said.

Although the news for Florence is great, King said other QVC locations will not be as lucky.

“It’s good for Florence, but unfortunate for those areas they are closing down,” he said. “It speaks well for the business climate in Florence and the workers at QVC.”

Michael George, the company’s president and CEO, said in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer the money saved from the cost-cutting measures could save the company nearly $40 million annually.

Most of the layoffs will affect the distribution center in West Chester, Pa., where QVC is based.

“It was hard,” George said in the Inquirer interview. “There was no other way to describe it. A lot of shock. A lot of sadness. Some tears. It was a very emotional time.”

Florence County’s QVC distribution center on TV Road officially opened July 11, 2007. Its four other distribution centers are located in West Chester and Lancaster, Pa.; Rocky Mount, N.C.; and Suffolk, Va. The largest of the centers is in Rocky Mount.

In an interview the day after Florence County’s distribution center opened, George said QVC would have 700 employees at the facility by the end of 2008, then 900 by the end of 2009.

The company committed an investment of $74 million and 600 jobs to the Florence County facility. It hired about 340 people soon after it opened. the facility was to initially employ 400 people and handle national distribution of products sold on QVC’s cable channel and Web site.

The 1.4 million square-foot Florence County facility sits on about 256 acres and is made up of 6,500 tons of steel. It has the capability of handling 275,000 packages a day.

Why shut down one whole call center?, Why not 100 jobs at each center?
That gives you the 700 or so less jobs, as for being call centers, most of them would be part time jobs I assume.

Sure having hosts work more hours and having fewer of them would save money,(there are currently 22 hosts ) they would have to give rid of the older hosts as well as some of the newer one too, But behind the scene people always get cut first.

they need to "encourage" some of the vets to leave(JRT and Bob Bowersox come to mind)