They are large communication centers that issue or receive thousands of calls a day. They work for Ibex 35 companies, helping to solve breakdowns or attract new clients, or for the administration, in the Income campaign, for example. They are the ‘call centers’, a business on the rise in Spain that employs almost 100,000 employees. This week there has been outstanding news due to the tragic death of Inma, a telemarketer who suddenly lost her life in the cubicle of the company where she had been working for 15 years. Some colleagues continued to work next to her body. Companies that carry out essential tasks and whose workers consider that they live a day to day with pressure. The employees consulted summarize their day to day with the term “stress”.
The central problem for the employees consulted is the workload. “Our burdens are high. The average is usually 50 calls a day but there are campaigns in which more than 100 are exceeded. This is continuous. We must not be absent from the cubicle or the computer in case we are teleworking. And we don’t have time between calls since the system assigns one after the other”, details a worker from a large company currently engaged in a campaign for a large insurer.
“Every day it becomes clear how stressful it is to work in a ‘contact center’, with pressure from superiors to make all calls fast.” To this must be added “the attitude of customers who get nervous.” It is, therefore, “a job prone to stress”, laments this telemarketer. The CEX association reveals, in fact, the high “absenteeism” that exists in the sector: 12.48%. Those affected call it ” pressure” or “low stress”.
The workers denounce that it is a “precarious” sector and in which, in addition, they have lost purchasing power, regrets Diana, focused, for her part, on a specific campaign for an electric company. The salary increases contemplated in the state agreement, which has just been signed, do not compensate for inflation. To this situation must be added the temporality that, according to complaints, is still high. According to the CEX association, the proportion of permanent contracts experienced a considerable increase in 2022 compared to the previous year, representing 77% of the total. There were 16 basic points of improvement. Even so, they are still three out of four permanent contracts.
The wages of a worker in a call center are, in effect, appraised by agreement. The Official State Gazette (BOE) published on June 9 the “collective agreement of the contact center sector” where the salary tables are established. The sector agreed to an increase in payrolls of 3.5% in 2022, from another 3 .5% in 2023 and 3% next year.In this way, today, a full-time basic teleoperator receives 15,120 gross per year.A project manager, for his part, borders on 30,000 euros while a manager reaches 38,000 euros.
Diana herself explains that the company where she works used to use the work and service contract until just over a year ago. The labor reform, however, put an end to this contractual modality in the sector. “Now, especially in the case of new hires, the fixed-discontinuous one is used,” she adds. The unions are demanding that this contract not be abused and that the reference employment relationship be fixed, says Álvaro García, a representative of the UGT.
Customer experience companies, the sector in which the ‘call centers’ are located, employed a total of 96,614 people in 2022, 2.8% less than in the previous year, according to the balance published a few days ago by CEX association. It is a sector in continuous formation, since the telemarketers perform services for different economic areas: insurance, banks, electricity or the Tax Agency, among other clients.
The percentage of women employed in the sector is high. Three out of four are workers. The age group with the highest employment rate is 36 to 45 years old (30.4%), followed by those over 45 years old (29.5%).
Call center companies billed 2,203.38 million euros last year, according to the industry association. Telecommunications is the business that most demands its services, followed by insurance and banking. The three account for 50% of all customers.
