In Manizales—once a major hub of Colombia’s coffee-growing heartland—local officials have found a new way to tackle volatile commodity prices and high unemployment: professional call centers.
This city of 380,000 people, nestled in the Andes about 175 km northwest of Bogotá, is now attracting multinational companies and bringing new jobs to local residents.
For years, the Manizales authorities tried everything to sustain the coffee trade. Mayor Juan Llano explained that the city had pushed to raise output, expand cultivation, and focus on higher-quality coffee beans, but the results were disappointing—especially as Brazil tightened its grip as the world’s top coffee producer.
By 2005, unemployment in Manizales had soared to 20%, placing it among Colombia’s three hardest-hit cities. Llano then turned to a different model inspired by India, a pioneer in the global outsourcing industry. He created People Contact, a government-run agency tied to city hall that provides professional customer-service operations.
Multinational firms were drawn by the clear, neutral Spanish accent spoken in Colombia and the strong grammar skills of its workforce. According to Joan Cardona, director of People Contact (which currently manages around a dozen centers with roughly 30 staff members), the city offered tax breaks, fully equipped office rentals, and a ready pool of young workers—many fluent in two languages. Manizales, home to 11 universities, has trained about 15,000 young people in telephone-marketing and customer-service techniques, giving foreign companies access to a skilled labor force.
Today, Spanish firms such as Digitex and Emergia employ roughly 4,000 and 2,100 workers in the city, respectively. They provide Spanish-language support for about 40 clients across Europe, the United States, and Latin America, including AT&T and Movistar. According to official city data, in just four years the call-center industry has created 9,800 jobs—about 70% of them filled by women.