Kanata, Ontario
On April 23, 2008, Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-centers in Kanata, Ontario, terminating approximately 1100 employees, with 500 of those redundancies effective on the spot, and with the official closure of the center scheduled for the summer. The call-center had opened in 2006 after the city of Ottawa won a bid to host it. Less than a year later, Dell Inc. planned to double its workforce to nearly 3,000 workers and to add a new building. Journalists cited a high Canadian dollar and suggested high pay-rates as among the reasons for the cuts.