A continued pause by the Department of Education in its collection of student loans has led a company to lay off half of its staff, according to a published report.
Central Research, Inc., based in Lowell, Ark., is looking to pivot toward contact tracing as a means of offsetting some of the layoffs, but that is not happening fast enough.
Debt collection is one service offered by the company, which is laying off 200 employees in a series of phases that will begin by the end of this month and continue through July, according to the report. A number of collection agencies have been forced to lay off or furlough staff because of the coronavirus pandemic. Agencies haven either been unable to get employees set up to work from home or have suffered from a drop in account placement volume and were forced to cut back on the size of their staffs.
Central Research has a contract with the Department of Education to collect on student loans issued by the federal government. Those loans have been put into forbearance during the COVID-19 pandemic to help consumers get through the crisis.
“We’ve been able to do some work, and we’ve held out in hopes of securing additional work for those impacted,” said Tara Muck, director of marketing and communications for CRI. “But for financial stability of the company, we had to move forward with these layoffs until we either get additional business with roles that fit [those] positions, or we’re able to return to full support of that contract.”
