TIRANA, May 9 – Albania’s call center industry, employing an estimated 25,000 people, has received another blow as more than dozen big Italian companies have committed to repatriate their services as part of the Italian government’s efforts to curb outsourcing of these services to other low-cost countries serving as hub.
The new blow comes after some late 2016 legal changes in Italy making the supply of inbound and outbound services for Italy-based companies from non-EU countries such as Albania much tighter, already affecting dozens of small call centers companies.
Vodafone, Wind, Tim, Sky, Mediaset, Fastweb, already providing call centers services from Albania are among the 13 Italian companies that have committed to gradually repatriate 95 percent of their direct activity and 80 percent of their outsourcing services.
The deal, signed last weekend by Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni is part of the Italian government’s plans to protect some 80,000 call center jobs at home by offering subsidies to local companies.
Call center representatives in Albania say the new deal risks cutting thousands of jobs due to small diversification opportunities in other regional markets and poor demand for speculative services such as online trading platforms or currency exchange investments.
At least 30 call center companies operating in Albania and employing about 3,000 people have suspended their activity in the country following some late 2016 legal changes in Italy that became effective starting April 1.
The late 2016 legal changes gave Italian consumers the option of speaking to a call-centre worker in the country rather than someone overseas, especially non-EU countries. The changes envisage huge fines ranging from €50,000 to €150,000 for call centers whose operators don’t inform customers about the country they are calling from or when answering to customer enquiries, something which had been avoided. The legal changes also make it more difficult for Italian companies to change their location or contract non-EU third parties who have to provide guarantees about data protection.
One of the key employers in recent years, the call center industry currently employs about 25,000 people in Albania, mainly providing services for Italy-based companies. The industry has also had a key impact on reducing youth unemployment rates which still remains high at about 30 percent and curbing the huge mismatch between skills acquired in universities and labour market needs.
The call center industry mainly engaged in marketing campaigns and customer service for big operators in Italy has seen a boom in the past five years mainly due to low operational costs and the fluent Italian that Albanian youngsters speak.
Operating costs are estimated three times lower compared to Italy where average wages for a call center job range from €900 to €1,000 compared to €280 to €350 in Albania.
