Telecoms & IT Central America’s Call Center
El Salvador is engaged in the digitalization of its state and economy, with ripples now being felt in the world of work.
The prestigious arrival of Google in 2024 confirmed the status of the local technology sector and the presence of a qualified local market to populate it.
According to World Bank data for 2023, the service industry’s share of value added to GDP in El Salvador was steady YoY at a fraction under 60%.
And within that burgeoning sector lies the call center industry, which, as Minister of Economy María Luisa Hayem notes, currently accounts for 4.2% of the country’s formal employment.
This meant 22,000 people were employed in the sector in 2022—a figure closer to 33,000 today–representing sectoral growth of around 10% over recent years.
In a TBY interview, Hayem emphasized that the government’s economic strategy leaned heavily towards technology and creating an attractive environment for tech companies.
Unsurprisingly, then, incentives aplenty have included slashed red-tape for opening businesses and the juicy tax breaks firms look to in the kind of competitive commercial address El Salvador has become.
Workers’ Issues
Given the sector’s significance to the wider economy, call center workers made history in October 2024 by establishing the first industry trade union, the Industry Union of Call Centre Operators in El Salvador (SITOES).
Working conditions rank high here for an industry with high incidences of burnout.
Adequate breaks and performance targets that make earning bonuses an uphill struggle rank high among worker rights issues. SITOES held its inaugural general assembly on October 5.
Time will tell whether, from the employers’ perspective, unionization will impact overall competitiveness.
Building a Qualified Workforce
As the Minister of Economy points out, the call center industry ranks among the few to pay above the minimum wage. “Another [government] project of note […] that aims to spur economic growth on and attract investment is a USD150 million initiative to train more than 40,000 people for high-growth key sectors”, she told TBY in our interview. Among these sectors are the call centers.
The government has opted for a public-private approach to training young people for tech-employment readiness back in 2022, initiating a pilot project with 10 call center firms.
Reportedly, 70% of those trained secured full-time employment.
Meanwhile, the Call Center Committee at the American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham), in helping match foreign clients to El Salvador’s customer representatives, has stressed the importance of increasing bilingualism.
Member companies recently staged a fair at which the English To Connect (E2C) program, championed by the Ministry of Economy, was showcased.
Over the past two decades, the program has helped many citizens up their prospects in the local job market.
Clearly, bilingual citizens are more employable than those confined to their native tongue. They also have the potential to access a wider array of jobs, boosting the competitiveness of the economy in the process.
The call center industry continues to confirm the nation’s competitive offering.
As more citizens garner the skills international companies look for to service their customers, the industry, now with a new voice for its workforce, still has marked potential.
