A casualty of the strong Canadian dollar?

A major call centre in Kitchener is losing clients, with predictable results:

KITCHENER — Arvato Digital Services, a Kitchener-based call centre, plans to lay off up to 200 workers later this summer after losing a couple of major contracts.

Currently, about 1,200 people work at the call centre, which occupies three floors of an office building at 235 King St. E. in downtown Kitchener.

Greg Brown, Arvato’s vice-president of human resources for North America, said a couple of major clients “consolidated their industries” in reaction to the global recession and took away projects handled by the Kitchener office.

These were global clients who didn’t want the business handled in Canada anymore, he said Tuesday in an interview from Arvato’s head office in Washington, D.C. “It’s part of the cycle of business.”

From the Record. I have to wonder why the issue of the high dollar is not mentioned, even in passing, in the article. You'd think any reporter worth his or her salt should have at least asked someone at Arvato if the dollar was a factor. Of course, it's possible that the reporter did ask and the editors removed that part, but it's more likely that it never occurred to them to ask. After all, it's always being drummed into us that a high dollar is great. Many of the Arvato workers probably rejoiced at the rising dollar -- "Wow, I can drive down to Buffalo and get even more shite for my money than before!" Of course, that only works when you have money...

Edited to add: A friend of mine, who is a veteran of the industry, tells me that nobody in the call centre industry in Canada wants to admit that the success or failure of many of these businesses is largely dependent on the exchange rate, a factor that's outside their control. Presumably they'd like to keep the illusion that they're masters of their own destiny. Still, that doesn't explain the failure of the reporter to ask the question.