Jun. 12—ROCHESTER — Spectrum, a company that offers telephone, internet and cable television service, announced to employees on Wednesday that it will close its Rochester call center on Bandel Road Northwest, which signals the end of potentially hundreds of local jobs. The closing will be effective on Aug. 15.

A former employee of Spectrum contacted the Post Bulletin on Wednesday afternoon to report that company leaders had made the surprise announcement.

Spectrum spokesperson Jay Saunders confirmed the announcement.

“Spectrum continues to invest in its network, technology and employees to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Our call center operations are a critical part of that experience, in which we invest and evolve to meet the changing needs of our customers,” wrote Saunders in response to questions about the closure. “As part of that change, Customer Service call center operations in Rochester will be transitioned to other in-house U.S.-based centers that will offer employees more resources and opportunities in addition to allowing us to deliver information, training and technology to our representatives more efficiently.”

He declined to say how many employees work in the center. The company had reported having 500 employees there in 2014, though one current and one former Spectrum employee estimated that number is between 200 and 300 today.

The final tally on job losses “will be defined over the next two months, as we hope to retain as many of our talented and experienced employees as possible in other roles here in Rochester or through relocation to other Spectrum customer service centers,” wrote Saunders.

In 2023, Saunders stated that more than 60% of Spectrum’s 900 Minnesota employees worked in Rochester at that time. The company, formerly and still commonly known as Charter, had 1,200 employees working in Rochester at three locations in 2017. It currently has Rochester employees at the Bandel Road office and at a complex at 3993 Heritage Place NW.

This closure follows a string of Rochester cuts by Spectrum in recent years.

In June 2023, it cut 60 positions that had been based on the Rochester Technology Campus, the former IBM campus.

Spectrum also eliminated its Rochester business-to-business call center in 2019. It was estimated that the cut affected up to 200 employees, according to insider estimates.