France’s Telemarketing Ban Has Cost Morocco Nearly 10,000 Call-Center Jobs
Nearly 10,000 jobs are estimated to have disappeared from Moroccan call centers since France banned unsolicited telemarketing. Small businesses have borne the brunt of the closures. Large groups have reassigned employees to other roles, sometimes at the cost of new concessions.
“We have been contacted by employees who have lost their jobs,” says Ayoub Saoud, secretary-general of the National Federation of Call Centers and Offshoring Professions. In a survey published Wednesday, October 21, by Les Échos, the union official describes centers that have closed, sometimes leaving their employees without compensation. The sector is beginning to assess the consequences of the French reform.
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In March, Morocco’s Minister of Employment, Younes Sekkouri, feared that 40,000 to 50,000 jobs could disappear. Since August 11, companies that solicit French consumers must have obtained their prior consent. The rule also applies to calls made from Morocco, in accordance with the new French regulations.
At the end of September, the FNCAMO-UMT trade union federation estimated that nearly 10,000 jobs had been lost out of the 120,000 to 150,000 in Morocco’s call-center sector. This figure remains an estimate, as small informal businesses often do not appear in the statistics. The international trade union organization UNI Global Union had already reported workers left without jobs, sometimes unable to recover their wages.
For small centers specializing in telephone sales, the numbers no longer add up. They now have to buy lists of prospects who have agreed to be contacted. These contacts are expensive, even if they offer a better chance of making a sale. Some businesses, unable to afford this expense, have closed.
Small centers close as large operators shift to other work
The French market accounts for more than 80% of Moroccan call centers’ activity. Yet telemarketing generates only about 15% of their revenue, according to professional organizations cited by Les Échos. Most of their work now comes from other services: customer support, technical assistance, administrative management or digital services.
Large companies had anticipated this shift. At Foundever, call-center agents have been reassigned to technical support or digital channels, says Rabii Zafat, an employee and union representative at the group. Hiring has also been frozen in some departments, with companies taking advantage of natural attrition to gradually reduce their workforces.
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This diversification of activities allows large operators to retain some of their employees. However, moving from sales to customer relations can come with a pay cut, particularly when sales commissions made up a significant share of an employee’s salary.
Ayoub Saoud is now calling for meaningful support for affected workers, including training and income guarantees while they retrain. Behind the thousands of jobs preserved by large companies, workers from small centers are still trying to recover the wages and compensation they are owed.
