Courts in the United States are expected to make a decision Tuesday on whether an American investor can take over the former ServiCom call centre in Sydney.

Hundreds laid off workers, who didn’t get paid for their final weeks of work before ServiCom closed, haven’t been able to afford to wait and have been desperately looking for work.

A call centre in Glace Bay is looking to hire and held a job fair Monday.

“Most people are trying to find out where they’re going to get their next dollar to try and maintain some sort of a Christmas,” said former ServiCom employee Wayne Sharpe. “It was bad timing the way they did everything.”

Sharpe worked at ServiCom for 19 years before the call centre closed its doors for good on Dec. 6.

Now, like the nearly 600 other employees out of a job, he's hoping good news will come Tuesday, but is keeping his options open.

“You have to look at other options as well,” Sharpe said. “Because there's a lot of uncertainty at this point in time, so you have to look at options available to you. Nobody knows for sure, right.”

Nova Scotia business minister Geoff MacLellan says Tuesday is the deadline for the courts south of the boarder to make a decision on whether or not an American businessman can go ahead with purchasing the former call centre.

“Everything hinges on Tuesday, which is the final proceedings for the bankruptcy process through the courts in the U.S.,” said MacLellan. “The judge has it all in front of her now and she will make an ultimate decision on what happens with the assets and how the entity is structured coming out of that.”

MacLellan says the new owner is looking to hire all six hundred people if the deal is approved Tuesday. MacLellan says before ServiCom went out of business, the former call centre was making a profit and was viable.

“I liked the people I worked with,” Sharpe said. “I liked the contract I was on. It was a good place to be and a family environment for the most part. When they closed their doors … it was like you lost members of your family as well.”

Family that Sharpe hopes he will soon be reunited with.

And if the deal goes through, it will be an early Christmas gift many have been hoping for for weeks.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.