WITH THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’ S EFFORTS TO RESHORE AMERICAN JOBS, DO YOU SEE MORE U. S.-CUSTOMER SERVING CONTACT CEN- TER JOBS MOVING BACK TO THE U. S. FROM CAN- ADA? IN TURN, WILL CONTACT CENTERS LOCATED IN CANADA ONLY SERVE ITS DOMESTIC MARKET?
A: I do not see a meaningful shift of Canadian contact center operations south to the U. S. under the Trump Administration.
Since call centers don’ t ship physical goods, they are not directly impacted by tariffs. But other factors might come into play like future incentives, regulatory relief, and ties to federal procurement contracts.
As to the second part of your question there’ s always been a healthy mix of servicing both the Canadian and U. S. markets from a Canadian-based contact center, and I don’ t see this changing.
The province of New Brunswick continues to stand out as a contact center location with its excellent bilingual English and French-speaking workforce. But it has the potential to be much more than that. We see the province under Premier Susan Holt build on its contact center successes in some new and exciting technology sectors, including cybersecurity and digital health.
At the same time, Premier Holt is continuing with the province’ s tradition of political savviness exemplified by former Premier Frank McKenna. He, along with partners at NB Tel, established New Brunswick as a North American location of choice for new contact center operations.
Premier Holt has already traveled to Washington, D. C. and lobbied Congress against U. S. tariffs. She has also met with Maine Senator Susan Collins on cross-border issues, which are vital to contact centers serving the vast U. S. market.
Immigration restrictions and crackdowns Trump’ s immigration posture is less friendly versus Biden’ s for H1B, F1 student visas, and H4 workers. I do not foresee this having a major impact on the contact center industry – where AI is easing recruiting challenges--while a new influx of laidoff federal government workers will be joining the labor pool.
We also do not see Trump’ s crackdown on illegal border crossings having any impact on a company’ s ability to recruit Latino workers.
Trump has wide support within America’ s Latino population, which has long been an important hiring segment due to language proficiencies and cultural affinities to the highgrowth Latino market in the U. S.
" IN AN INDUSTRY WITH PERSISTENT TURNOVER CHALLENGES, ALLOWING SOME DEGREE OF REMOTE WORK IS NECESSARY..."
FURTHER TO RESHORING AND IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS, WOULD THESE MOVES, EVEN WHEN ACCOUNTING FOR THE INFLUX OF FEDER- AL WORKERS INTO THE LABOR FORCE, RESULT IN AN EVEN TIGHTER LABOR SUPPLY AND HIGHER EMPLOYMENT COSTS FOR CONTACT CENTERS?
CONSIDERING THAT MANY OF THE JOBS THAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS TO BRING BACK ARE ALSO IN THE HIGHER-PAYING MANU- FACTURING SECTORS THAT WILL DRAW THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST FROM OTHER EMPLOYERS?
A: Our firm’ s BizCosts ® data bank is not projecting any significant inflationary wage pressures nor a meaningful tightening of the supply of workers, Latino or otherwise, for contact center employment brought about by our nation’ s heightened measures to secure the southern border.
I see little, in any, cause and effect here as we are dealing with two very different sets of population. Trump’ s reshoring initiatives will focus primarily on the manufacturing sector. So, the overall shift of laid off federal workers going into the contact center industry will be minimal at best given an overall mismatch of skill sets and salary expectations.
RETURN-TO-OFFICE( RTO)/ ON-PREMISE CENTERS
REGARDING THE RETURN-TO-OFFICE( RTO) TREND, ARE YOU SEEING IT ALSO AT THE CONTACT CENTER LEVEL?
A: While the RTO trend has momentum today, we do not see it having a material impact on the contact center industry where the model will continue to be a hybrid one, with over 80 % of the industry being either fully remote or a hybrid. In an industry with persistent turnover challenges, allowing some degree of remote work is necessary for successful recruiting and retention.
The real game-changer, as I noted before, will be the continued proliferation of AI and how it is embraced by the workforce. We are seeing more workers within companies rationalizing working on-site as the preferred way for career advancement. Especially as more and more jobs are lost to AI and automation.
ARE YOU SEEING ANY CHANGES IN THE SIZE OF ON-PREMISE CONTACT CENTERS?
A: Contact centers are getting smaller and the labor force is shrinking due to automation, the wider adoption of AI technologies, and the continuation of the massive work-fromhome( WFH) contingent within the contact center industry.
8 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE