Jobs lost at Sallie Mae, J.C. Penney

The J.C. Penney call center in Moosic will close in March, eliminating 275 jobs, the company said Thursday.

The last day for the center, which handles sales for the retailer’s catalog, will be March 28, said Tim Lyons, a J.C. Penney spokesman in Plano, Texas. The full-time and part-time employees were notified Thursday. The company will provide severance packages to eligible employees.

“The closing is primarily the result of the reduction in call volume throughout our network,” Lyons said.

J.C. Penney’s six other call centers – in Pittsburgh; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Sacramento, Calif.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Richmond, Va., and Columbus, Ohio – will remain open.

The local office near Montage Mountain opened in 1988, Lyons said. The lease on the building ends this year, but Lyon said he was not sure if the date coincided with the center’s closing.

Farther south in Luzerne County, one of the region’s major employers said it was reducing its workforce as it attempts to survive in a turbulent lending climate.

Student loan provider SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae, is laying off 40 of its 850-person staff at its payment processing center in Hanover Industrial Estates.

“Its part of a nationwide job cut of 350 positions,” said spokesman Tom Joyce. The company employs about 11,000 around the country, he said.

Joyce said employment at the local facility, where all of Sallie Mae’s student loan payments are processed, had grown from 680 at the start of 2004.

No particular types of jobs are being targeted, but they are mostly call center and support functions, Joyce said.

“Like other student lenders, we’ve faced a number of challenges,” the spokesman said. “Keeping our costs in line is critical to having our company survive and thrive.”

Sallie Mae’s stock price has been buffeted by disruptions in the credit market and other factors.

In April, a group led by J.C. Flowers & Co. that included Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered $60 a share in what would have been the largest-ever buyout of a financial-services company.

Sallie Mae shares traded as high as $58 in July. But then the prospective buyers, concerned about higher borrowing costs and legislation passed in September that cut government subsidies to student lenders, decided to lower their offer.

After Sallie Mae rejected a revised bid of $50 a share, the investors group sued, seeking a $900 million breakup fee. The shares closed Thursday at $18.53, down $1.44.

According to its Web site, Sallie Mae owns or manages student loans for nearly 10 million customers and administers more than $18 billion in college savings accounts for 1 million customers through its Upromise subsidiary.

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More than 300 lose jobs with closing of J.C. Penney call center and layoffs at Sallie Mae.

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