Home Depot to Outsource 500 More Jobs

Home Depot will outsource another 500 transactional and call center jobs over the next several months, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution over the weekend.

CIO Bob DeRodes, in a memo to employees obtained by the paper, said the company would assist affected employees in finding other positions in the company and the move would not result in a net job loss thanks to “the company’s continuing growth and staffing needs for the spring season.”

The outsourced work will be in the finance, merchandising operations, services, and call center areas. The memo did not indicate where geographically the jobs would be outsourced to or what vendor would be taking them over. However, the home improvement chain confirmed last year that it had begun outsourcing work to Tata Consultancy Services in India.

A Home Depot spokesperson would not comment to the newspaper on the memo.

Last year, CIO senior writer Meridith Levinson chronicled Home Depot’s $1 billion investment in IT infrastructure — part of a massive modernization effort the retailer was betting would help accelerate growth and earnings and beat back its prime competitor, Lowe’s.

 –Stephanie Overby