High tech, low pay characterise new sector

EVERY day during 1996 another three young Irish people took up jobs in a telesales, telemarketing or teleservices centre. More than likely their new employer was a major multinational and they were joining an operation that worked around the clock, 365 days of, the year, and conducted its affairs in a number of languages.

According to Mr Denis Molumby, manager of the international services division of IDA Ireland, 1,000 such jobs are now being created each year.

In the second week of December the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, said the teleservices sector now had the potential to achieve over 5,000 new jobs by the end of the decade.

It was an upbeat message nearing the end of what has been a successful year for the IDA's strategy of targeting teleservices to provide employment growth.

Growth is occurring in domestic as well as in international companies. At the beginning of the year Ryanair and Forbairt announced the creation of 220 jobs in the airline's telemarketing sector. But the bulk of the growth has been in the multinational sector.

In April, the US software group, Oracle announced plans for a £50 million telemarketing centre near East Wall, in Dublin, employing 400 people.

That same month the Internet service provider, AOL Bertlesmann, announced it was to create 500 jobs in its customer support centre, also in East Wall.

In June, the world's largest courier organisation, United Parcel Services (UPS), announced its decision to open a customer services centre in Tallaght. That operation will provide an information and order processing service to the company's European customers. The centre will eventually employ 900 people, the company said, making it the biggest single such development to date.

That same month the IDA lodged a planning permission application for a £10 million office block in the Swords Business Park, in north Dublin. The office block was designed for a single occupant and the IDA said it was confident it could fill it with a single telemarketing operation before the end of the year.

In November, IBM opened its customer services centre in Blanchardstown, Dublin, providing 275 jobs but with plans for 750 positions at the centre within three years.

Executives with the company said they had no difficulty finding employees capable of speaking more than one language fluently. Almost all of the new team are graduates and 60 per cent were women.

All the new workers were aged between 23 and 24, had signed four year contracts, and were being paid £12,500 per annum, £1,750 less than the average industrial wage.

By December, work had begun on the Swords site for which the IDA had applied for planning permission in June.

Swords is also to be the location for a 600 job Hertz operation. That company's decision to locate its telephone services centre in Ireland was described bye Mr Bruton as "a major breakthrough in IDA Ireland's strategy to attract global companies".

And so the growth seems set to continue. Telecom Eireann, whose investment in its infrastructure some years ago set the foundation for Ireland's success in attracting such jobs, has been reaping its own rewards.

The number of calls being made by companies involved in teleservices grew by 400 per cent in 1994, 600 per cent in 1995, and by around 400 per cent this year. Mr Gerry O'Sullivan, corporate communications manager with Telecom, will not say exactly how much this business is worth.

"That's competitive information. Let's just say we're talking multiples of tens of millions of minutes.

But developments in the sector have not all been positive. A spokesman for SIPTU has criticised the level of pay in the industry, and said the IDA wishes to see pay rates remain low, so as to attract more companies here.

Many of the multinationals wish to keep trade unions out of their teleservices work places, something which is facilitated by the high turnover which can occur in such jobs.

However a spokeswoman for the IDA said the sector offers graduates the opportunity to get first jobs, from which they can launch their careers. The salaries are reasonable for first time jobs, she said.