TIRANA, Nov. 20 – Dozens of small call center companies in the country have ceased their operations in the past few months following Italian legal changes making the supply of services for Italy-based companies from non-EU countries such as Albania much tighter starting April 2017, according to the tax administration data.
Company representatives say the law regulating offshore outsourcing and a deal by 13 big energy and telecommunication operators in Italy with the Italian government to conduct 80 percent of their call center outsourcing work on home soil has already had severe negative effects for small operators in Albania and big companies are looking to diversify, shifting to English-language support services and speculative services such as online trading platforms or currency exchange investments.
H & L Communication has already closed down two of its Tirana units, employing more than a hundred people following a sharp cut in contracts with Italy. The company, which started operations in mid-2015 is one of more than 30 that have shifted into a passive status with the tax administration during this year.
“If the situation continues like this, we won’t be for long. I have made my life investment, I have a loan to pay off but it seems that I am running out of work,” the company’s administrator is quoted as saying by Monitor magazine.
The call center closures are also having a negative impact on youth unemployment, currently about 30 percent. The positive impact that the call center industry has had on the Albanian economy came to an end in the second quarter of the year after it suffered its first quarterly contraction since early 2011 just before the industry began to rapidly grow.
Employing some 25,000 people, the call center industry had emerged as a catalyst for youth unemployment, and the mismatch between skills earned at universities and labor market needs, making use of good language skills by Albanian youngers, especially fluent Italian, and cheap labor costs.
More and more companies have recently diversified to mediating services in online trading platforms luring potential investors with high return rates and often targeting markets such as Italy and England. The services are considered highly speculative as customers tend to lose most of the times and experts say they cannot serve as replacement for call centers which can consider diversifying their services in languages other than Italian and also target new markets as a way out.
Italian experts say small Albanian companies are also suffering because of lack of professionalism, losing the confidence of Italian contractors because of cheating with promotional campaign contracts.
The country’s financial supervisory authorities have warned Albanians to be careful with online trading in international stock exchanges, describing such investments as highly risky, especially if offered by unlicensed operators and used by investors lacking appropriate knowledge.
Potential investors are being lured by online brokers through phone calls and aggressive marketing campaigns at a time when only three brokers have been licensed by the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Bank of Albania to offer such services.
Online trading platforms offer investors opportunities to invest in financial products in international stock exchanges, mainly in government securities, foreign exchange and commodity products such as oil and precious metals.
