• Home
• /
• Business

Call centres closure across Saudi endangers 16,000 jobs

The price reductions initiated by Saudi Telecom have drastically affected the income of call centres around the Kingdom and turned many into loss-making businesses to the extent that many are laying off staff or closing down the business.

Sadeq Al-Abdaly an agent for investors in the sector, has made an appeal to Saudi Labour Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gossaibi, asking the government, to save the sector from ruin and its employees from unemployment. He warned that If Saudi Telecom does not change its policies, we will find ourselves obliged to take it to court to save our jobs and income.

Al-Abdaly said: "I rely on call centres as my only source of income. I have been working in this field now for four years and have 25 young Saudi men working for me, given that this line of work does not require specific qualifications.

Saudi Telecom continues to neglect this sector deliberately despite receiving 80 per cent of the revenue from each centre, Yahia Al-Jhfaly, head of a company that owns a number of centres in the eastern region was quoted as saying the by the daily last week. He warned that STC needed to reconsider investors profit margins as they pay the rent and the workers salaries but only receive 20 per cent of the income.

He explained that in Saudi Arabia, only young people worked in call centres. If the neglect of the sector continued, these employees were likely to lose their jobs. Unemployment would increase and many would lose their only source of income.

In response to these accusations, Abdullah Al-Shahri who heads the media department at Saudi Telecom said: "We stopped issuing permits for new call centres four years ago.

We have no intention of renegotiating each party's profit margin. Saudi Telecom takes 80 per cent of the revenue but in recent years, any income from unused minutes has been given to the call centres." He said that lowering the tariffs of international phone calls had an impact on call centres and the STC as more people prefer to call abroad from their mobile phones.

In a related development, the mastermind behind the SR1.3 billion Sawa card scam was released from prison last week in response to calls from investors who demanded their money be returned to them.