The ABSL report for 2015 shows a steady increase in employment in the sector of modern business services in Poland. Over the last two years, the number of employees at foreign-invested service centres has increased by a third. The number of jobs in this sector is also growing on a regular basis.
There are more than 600 foreign-invested shared services centres across Poland. Over the last years, the sector’s employment rate has grown by at least 36%.
“Qualified workforce, high quality of service and still-low operating costs are among the reasons why Poland is very often selected by foreign investors as their SSC/BPO location. 2012 and 2013 saw a very intensive growth in this sector. A record-breaking number of new centres was established in this period, with a positive impact on the growth in jobs in many regions. As a result, as many as 40 localities across Poland have their foreign-invested centres,” says Barbara Echaust, a Senior Consultant at Spring Professional.
It needs emphasising that the SSC/BPO sector does not seem to be willing to stop at that. The ABSL’s research shows that even 86% centres plan to increase their headcount before the end of 2016 by 28% on the average. Most of these organisations also plan to extend their focus on more specialisations, which may turn out to be very attractive both for those looking for a job in the sector and for the employees, who will certainly have an opportunity to develop their careers in new fields.
“The period of the most intensive investment efforts in the sector might be over, but the sector itself still generates Poland’s highest number of vacancies, which is not expected to change for several years to come. Forecasts show that planned employment in this business until 2020 will be over 250,000,” says Barbara Echaust.
The greatest part of shared services centres market are services related to IT, finance and HR. Specialisations in these fields are most popular, and the supply of related job offers in the SSC/BPO sector is highest. There is still a large preference for large metropolitan areas. Next to Krakow and Warsaw, where the highest number of such organisations is located, the most frequent choices are Wroclaw, Poznan and Tri-City (Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot). It needs stressing, however, that more and more smaller cities join the list. Among other locations, there has been a growth in employment in Lublin, Torun and Opole. Finally, Katowice should be mentioned in this context, where significant interest from international investors is observed.