Last year, the pandemic did not have a negative impact on 9 out of 10 centers
During 2021, the customer, business and IT services industry will create 10,000 new jobs, which corresponds to a 5 percent growth. The wages of employees in the sector also increased at the same rate, which contributed to a significant reduction in turnover. In 2020, a total of 330 local centers employed 120,000 people, almost half of whom were workers from abroad, mainly from Western Europe. They were attracted to the Czech Republic mainly by career opportunities and a high quality of life. IT centers and personnel service providers are expanding the fastest. This follows from the annual report of ABSL, which was published at www.absl.cz/report2021.
“The ABSL survey traditionally maps the size and focus of business service centers in the Czech Republic, as well as its needs and challenges, which determine and influence its development. In 2020, the main accelerator was the development of the Covid-19 pandemic, “says Jonathan Appleton, director of the ABSL association, which brings together companies providing customer, business and IT services in the Czech Republic. It was the pandemic that accelerated digitization projects in 53% of centers, 38% of centers automated new processes, all with the aim of being able to function smoothly even in times of many restrictions on working life and social contacts. Thanks to this, 92% of companies in this sector reported a positive or no impact of the pandemic, and more than a third of the centers opened up new business opportunities thanks to the pandemic.
“Thanks to the ability to operate in a fully digital environment and bring innovation to all areas of business, our industry will continue to grow. Digitization makes it possible to deliver more and more activities and processes. In addition to the traditional accounting, these increasingly also include IT, but also services in the field of law, cyber security, human resources, development, and processes related to the massive growth of data and data analytics,” explains Jonathan Appleton.
The expanding scope of the sector changes the requirements for job seekers. In addition to language skills, knowledge of technology and working with data are required. It is also important to be open to learning new things, have an innovative spirit and be able to adapt quickly.
Costs and availability
Many global companies today are restructuring their international operating models and are considering creating new business service centers to move IT, innovation, digital skills, and other high value-added services. “Therefore, many companies are looking at the Czech Republic. In our survey, they mentioned that the combination of local labor costs, site availability and education is particularly interesting to them. The arrival of new and the development of existing service centers is a great opportunity for the Czech Republic, because focusing on fields with high added value can strengthen the stability of the Czech economy, “says Jonathan Appleton.
Main findings of the survey:
- The sector represents 330 companies, in which 120,000 employees worked in 2020 and 8750 jobs were held by robotic software
- For 2021, 58% of Czech centers predict further expansion
- In 2021, 10,000 new jobs will be created in the sector
- IT centers are growing the fastest (by 18 percentage points year-on-year), providing infrastructure management, deployment of robotic automation, digitization or development, testing and development of new products and services, and cyber security
- 45% of employees in the field are foreigners
- 70% of employees provide services in English, 16% in Czech and 13% in German
- In total, over 30 languages are used in the field
- Working from home will become a new standard – during a pandemic, 95% of employees in the field work from home, in the future 82% of employees want to work from home for at least half of the working time
You can watch a presentation summarizing the main findings of the survey in a short video here.
You can find the whole survey here.
