At least 800 taking jobless calls are laid off

State ends contracts with centers helping in surge

At least 800 workers who had been assisting Florida’s unemployment agency with handling calls from jobless residents are themselves being laid off this month, after the Department of Economic Opportunity terminated multimillion-dollar contracts with two of its call center providers.

AECOM, one of the companies whose contract was severed last week — which became public after screenshots of company emails were posted online — will lay off about 800 people, said company spokesman Michael Chee.

Some of the affected workers were employed at two of AECOM’s subsidiaries, New Jersey-based Artech and Louisiana-based Plexos Group. AECOM’s headquarters are in Los Angeles. However, all of the employees who had been working as call reps for the DEO were Floridians and working remotely.

United Data Technologies, the other company whose contract was ended early, had been providing DEO with another 155 customer representatives, but UDT did not return requests asking whether those employees would be kept on.

It’s still unclear why the companies were let go. Both told the Orlando Sentinel they were notified by DEO that it was due to a funding shortage and were assured it was not because of their performance.

“We have no reason to believe there was any other issue involved other than financial concerns,” Chee said.

AECOM’s one-year contract that began April 24 totaled $24.6 million and UDT’s which started April 8 totaled $12.5.

However, in a statement to the press,