A CALL CENTRE company based in Waterford is to create 250 new jobs after winning a major contract, Jobs Minister Richard Bruton announced today.

Eishtec, which was set up just six months ago, said recruitment for the 250 new positions is now underway.

Eishtec currently employs 30 people and the expansion is part-funded by the Government through Enterprise Ireland. It comes on the back of winning a contract from UK mobile network Orange.

The jobs boost comes after a rough year for the southeast after the closure of TalkTalk in October resulting in the loss of 575 jobs.

One of the founders of Eishtec is a former TalkTalk employee.

Speaking from the company’s Cleaboy Business Park operations, Bruton said the announcement was “wonderful news”. He said the jobs were a “perfect fit for the skills here in Waterford which had been in Talk Talk”.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, the Minister said the Government had put a “special focus on the south-east” in recent months. He acknowledged that there were “serious structural problems” in the area.

However, he insisted that Government plans to boost employment were working. “There is a change happening in our economy,” he said, adding that “120,000 people left the Live Register to take up new posts” during 2011.

-Additional reporting by Michael Freeman