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Sears is outsourcing about 150 jobs from its Tucson call center to locations overseas, including the Philippines.

But affected local workers will be able to move to open positions here, the retailer said.

The cuts are in the teleservices group, where workers schedule in-home repairs for Sears customers, said Kimberly Freely, a spokeswoman for Sears Holding Corp., which operates Sears and the Sears Customer Care Network call centers.

Workers will be allowed to apply for open jobs in other customer service groups at the same call center, and there are enough openings for everyone to transfer, Freely said.

"Our goal is to retain and retrain the talent from the teleservice group," she said.

Around 800 people work at the in-bound call center, 4755 S. Butterfield Drive. Other jobs include answering customer questions about the Sears Web site and online orders.

Sears had increased the number of jobs at the call center in recent years, hiring many of the workers who were laid off from last year's closing of the United Airlines frequent-flier call center in Tucson. In January 2006, the company said it planned to hire 400 new workers to add to 600 existing positions.

The Sears Customer Care Network has been among the largest employers in Tucson since 2001.

Around 5 percent of the Tucson-area work force, or about 16,000 people, work in approximately 40 local call centers, according to Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc., the local economic-development agency.

This week, Contact One Call Center Inc. started handling after-hours calls for California software company Forté Systems Inc., which previously contracted with a center in India.