STARKVILLE (AP) — Nashville-based Sitel will lay off 253 workers at its call center in Starkville.

Sitel spokesman Andrew Kokes tells the Starkville Daily News that the layoffs represent about 29 percent of the location’s hourly and salaried work force.

Kokes says the center had 850 workers at the peak of its operations at the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park.

Kokes says the layoffs come as a result of a reduction in business needs of two different customers — which he described only as a health care company and a high-speed internet provider.

Kokes says employees will be laid off in two segments — one group on Feb. 2 and another on March 3.