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Old Posted Aug 26, 2013, 11:05 PM
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Obama health care plan bringing 600 jobs to St. Louis

These jobs were only announced last week and people are already being hired.

Obama health care plan bringing 600 jobs to Wentzville
by Associated Press
KMOV.com
Posted on August 21, 2013 at 10:29 AM
Updated Thursday, Aug 22 at 8:30 AM



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WENTZVILLE, Mo. -- President Barack Obama’s health care reform is unpopular in parts of Missouri, but it is bringing 600 new jobs to the state.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Virginia-based government contractor Serco Inc. will hire 600 people over the next three months for a processing center in Wentzville, handling applications for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Serco closed a deal last week to lease much of the old US Fidelis call center in Wentzville, a St. Charles County town about 40 miles from St. Louis. The center is expected to be operational by Nov. 1.

Wentzville is one of three sites the company chose under a contract awarded in July from the Department of Health and Human Services. Centers are also planned in Arkansas and Kentucky.
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Old Posted Aug 27, 2013, 12:14 AM
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It's certainly good to hear about the jobs and reuse of a former shuttered call center. It does have me scratching my head though on if Obamacare should have a mission on where they locate to help areas that need a boost in their economy and lowering unemployment.

Call centers or processing centers aren't highly skilled labor. They require simple tasks and are an opportunity for non-college educated citizens. With unemployment hovering around 8.5% in St. Louis City, it would seem to make perfect sense to locate there while also providing easy access to residents that can take transit to work. Placing it on the bleeding edge of the metro has me questioning who they are looking to hire. Just an observation but it doesn't seem like Wentzville needs the jobs quite as bad, and with St. Louis claiming to be the silicon valley of the midwest, there must be buildings wired for call centers all over the place to help make a much better social and economic impact on the area.
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Old Posted Aug 29, 2013, 5:25 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hayward View Post
It's certainly good to hear about the jobs and reuse of a former shuttered call center. It does have me scratching my head though on if Obamacare should have a mission on where they locate to help areas that need a boost in their economy and lowering unemployment.

Call centers or processing centers aren't highly skilled labor. They require simple tasks and are an opportunity for non-college educated citizens. With unemployment hovering around 8.5% in St. Louis City, it would seem to make perfect sense to locate there while also providing easy access to residents that can take transit to work. Placing it on the bleeding edge of the metro has me questioning who they are looking to hire. Just an observation but it doesn't seem like Wentzville needs the jobs quite as bad, and with St. Louis claiming to be the silicon valley of the midwest, there must be buildings wired for call centers all over the place to help make a much better social and economic impact on the area.
I do agree that SERCO could have considered St. Louis City, but they didn't.

Ultimately, I can't blame them for their decision. Having a building that is "turnkey" i.e. already wired and equipped with furniture etc., who could beat that?

Further, who knows where these jobs would have gone had the old U.S. Fidelis headquarters not been available.

These SERCO jobs aren't exactly entry level U.S. fast food jobs either. Starting rate is $12+ per hour. Folks won't become millionaires, obviously, but these jobs could supplement households.

Also, there are a lot of minorities who live in Wentzville and St. Charles County as well as North St. Louis County, which is closer to Wentzville than St. Louis City. As long as they are willing to do the job, I don't think SERCO cares who they hire - they just need 600 people - even if they come in from Chicago. These are immediate jobs.

For the record, St. Louis has a HUGE health care industry with firms such as Megallan Healthcare, United Health Care, Wellpoint, Express Scripts, Centene Corporation, Coventry, Conifer Health (Tenet), Kindred, Ascension Health, etc. etc. either having their corporate, regional, back offices and/or call centers based in the region. SERCO obviously went with a region they thought was a good fit to get the job done.

Wentzville just happened to be where they found a large-enough "turnkey" building in the region.

In regards to the "Silicon Valley of the Midwest" jab, St. Louis hasn't made such a claim, but people are paying closer attention.
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Last edited by Arch City; Aug 29, 2013 at 6:56 PM.
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Old Posted Sep 30, 2013, 10:51 PM
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Sharonda Scott, left, is all smiles after accepting a contingent offer for a position with Serco Inc., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 in Lake St. Louis. Serco, Inc., is a government contractor and will be opening call centers to field applications for healthcare.

Thousands search for jobs in Wentzville hiring fair
September 28, 2013 2:40 pm • By Tim Logan
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

LAKE SAINT LOUIS • They just kept coming, one after another. Wearing pantsuits or shirts and ties. Clutching a portfolio or a handbag. Looking for work.

From Monday until Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., they filed into the bright and glassy lobby of an office building here, to be greeted by older men with name tags standing by the door and ushered into a waiting area for an interview. Some came way early. Others right on time. But thousands showed up, hoping to land a position with Serco, a government contracting firm which on Nov. 1 will open a processing center up the road in Wentzville for health insurance applications under the Affordable Care Act, and which needs a lot of people to staff it.

So this past week, even as Washington rang with debate about defunding “Obamacare” — as the controversial health insurance program is often called — Serco threw one of the single-biggest job fairs that job-starved St. Louis has seen in too long. More than 3,400 people filed online applications, and 1,100 were invited to interview. Hundreds more came without an invitation and met with the company anyway. Serco and its subcontractors hired 790.

“The response has just been awesome,” said Tammy Johnson, Serco’s director of human resources operations. “We’ve been getting a lot of great, talented people coming through the doors.”

The huge response may be in part because of the nature of the jobs, which at $14 to $27 an hour with health insurance and a 401(k) match are better than low-paid alternatives in many industries these days.

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