Liberty Lake company, Software Spectrum, to lay off 350 workers

Software Spectrum to make cuts after losing Microsoft contract

One of the largest employers in Liberty Lake will lay off more than half its work force by the end of September.

Tom Sowa
Staff writer Spokesman Review

Software Spectrum announced on Tuesday it will cut 350 jobs at its tech support center.

The cuts are the result of the company losing a contract to provide technical support services to Microsoft, said company spokeswoman Alison Eldred. Nearly all of the jobs will be transferred to India and Canada.

The 350 jobs will be phased out between July 11 and Sept. 30. About 150 workers will remain at the company.

Eldred said Software Spectrum hopes to win new contracts to retain the remaining jobs and eventually expand.

"Our primary focus right now is to try to find new projects to keep people working here," she said.

The layoffs will affect tech support agents, supervisors and some managers. Their salaries range from $9 to $12.50 per hour.

A Microsoft spokesman said the contract decision had nothing to do with the quality of Software Spectrum’s workers.

"This was a very difficult decision for Microsoft," said Stacy Drake, who works at the company’s Redmond office.

Drake said Microsoft has numerous contracts with assorted companies that provide technological support for customers with software and product questions. Cutting costs is only part of the reason for moving the jobs from Washington state, she said.

"We find it important to move to where our customers are. We have offices in 78 countries," Drake said.

In effect, Software Spectrum couldn’t provide enough overseas workers to meet Microsoft’s needs, Drake said.

Tom Newman, a Liberty Lake resident who works at Software Spectrum, said employees got no advance notice of the layoffs.

"This blindsided us," he said after company officials told employees about the layoffs Monday afternoon.

Laid-off workers will get severance packages based on tenure and job levels. Most will also get outplacement assistance to find other jobs, Eldred said.

The announcement is a blow for Liberty Lake and the Spokane area, said business consultant Nathan Brown.

"It’s a big impact in that Software Spectrum is one of the biggest employers in Liberty Lake," Brown said.

"But the impact is not just Software Spectrum. The whole area seems to be shedding jobs left and right."

Last week, Center Partners Inc. — which employs 900 call-center workers in North Idaho — said it lost a contract to provide service for AT&T Broadband. Center Partners officials haven’t said how many jobs will be lost.

World Wide Packets, which designs high-end networking equipment, laid off more than 40 workers last week as well. Two weeks ago, the federal government announced it will lay off 42 Spokane airport screeners.

While the Software Spectrum jobs don’t pay high salaries, they provided good wages and good technical training to workers, said Joan Ambriz, an account manager with Volt Technical Services, a staffing company.

She said laid-off tech workers at other firms often went to Software Spectrum in order to stay in the technology industry.

"One guy went from $50,000 a year (at one company) to an $11-an-hour job there at Software Spectrum. He took it because it was a good job and kept him in the technology area," she said.

Finding replacement jobs in the current market won’t be easy, said Jeannine Marx, who owns a recruitment company focusing on tech firms.

"There are just not enough jobs out there now," she said.

Marx said she was both surprised and depressed when she learned of Software Spectrum’s layoffs.

"I don’t think we had any advance warning in the community. I don’t know if we had any chance here to go out and try to save those jobs," said Marx.

If there’s an up side, it’s the growing number of skilled technology-information workers here who are ready to work for a company considering moving here.

"We need to go out and market what we have and try to bring back some companies to hire these people," she added.

Software Spectrum came to Spokane in 1996 and landed the contract with Microsoft in 1998. At its height in early 2001, the company employed 650 people in Liberty Lake.

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