A French ban on nuisance telemarketing calls could cost 50,000 jobs in Morocco. From Aug. 11, firms making unsolicited phone calls to French consumers could pay fines of up to €75,000 a call. Morocco’s outsourced call-center industry — built on cheap, Francophone labor with relatively weak unions — makes 80% of its revenue from phoning French customers. Rabat’s employment minister warned that 50,000 out of 120,000 jobs are at risk.
The sector is simultaneously being hollowed out by AI; India and the Philippines have also seen layoffs in their huge customer service outsourcing industries. An industry site noted that the characteristics that make call-center work easy to offshore — repetition, predictability, and scale — also make it suitable for automation.
