More than 250 employees of Teleservices Direct will be out of a job at the end of the year.

The company will close its Bowling Green call center by Dec. 31, according to a Warn Act Notice sent to the state this month.

The closure affects 74 full-time and 184 part-time employees. In October, the Indianapolis-based company announced it would close its Greenwood, Ind., location by Dec. 4, citing the same reasons for closure: loss of business volume.

Teleservices announced in late 2007 that it would open a call center at 1310 Campbell Lane, with the promise of 300 jobs.

According to Datamonitor, competition among outsourced call centers has become stiff as the economy has slumped.

Steve Lair, chief administrative officer for Teleservices, said there has definitely been a slowdown in business – companies have cut their marketing budgets or taken other approaches to selling their products and services.

Lair said he hoped the closure of the Greenwood facility would be all the cutting the company needed to do in order to right itself.

“But we think this is what we have to do, so that’s why we went ahead and notified employees we would be closing,” Lair said. “We are not sure of the exact day, but it will probably be by the end of the year or the first of January.”

The decision to close the Bowling Green facility has nothing to do with the town or the employees, he said.

“Bowling Green is a great town and we had wonderful employees there,” he said.

Employees here sold DirecTV as well as marketed for other major companies, Lair said.

Employees may relocate to the two remaining Teleservices facilities in Evansville, Ind., and Lafayette, Ind., if they are able. They will not receive severance packages.

Rapid Response has been in contact with the company and will be setting up an on-site meeting with employees closer to the time of closure, according to Helena Chase, Rapid Response coordinator for the Barren River Area Development District.

Rapid Response workers inform employees of job training opportunities, give them help in applying for other jobs and information on how to apply for various other state benefits they might be eligible to receive.

These services are offered at no cost to either the employer or the employee.

Lair said he wishes employees and the building’s owner, David Chandler, well.

“We hate to do this,” he said. “Hopefully at sometime in the future we will be back.”