SOFIA (Bulgaria), July 31 (SeeNews) -  A multitude of call centres in Bulgaria, a result of intensive outsourcing of customer services to the Black Sea country in the last few years, keep attracting domestic and foreign job seekers looking for a safe haven in a crisis-hit labour market.

Outsourcing firms providing customer support to leading global companies have mushroomed in the country, which joined the European Union in 2007, making use of the good language skills of the cheap local labour force. It comes as no surprise that Bulgaria ranked 13th in the latest edition of management consulting firm A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index, outscoring all rival offshoring destinations in Europe.

As the global crisis hit the country’s economy, Bulgarian job websites have been offering mainly positions at call centres. The relatively high salaries they offer compared to the low standard of living in Bulgaria have lured nationals of better-off countries as well.

Nina and Matiaz are two of the hundreds of foreigners working at call centres in Bulgaria, and two of the few Slovenians willing to work abroad.
 
"In Slovenia the proverb ‘Home, sweet home’ is very popular. Slovenians do not want to work abroad, because they are ‘zapeckarji’," says 29-year old Nina, failing to find an English translation to the Slovenian word for a home bird. Matiaz, 34, explains it more precisely as someone who likes staying by the fireplace at home.
 
For both of them, more than a year ago a job at a call centre in EU newcomer Bulgaria looked more attractive than their cozy fireplaces in Slovenia, the country with the highest gross domestic product per capita in Eastern Europe. 
 
"I had been looking for a job in Slovenia for two years but I couldn’t find anything. I found the job in Bulgaria on the Internet and I came to Sofia in May last year. I don’t regret coming here," says Nina.
 
Having studied Chinese for nine years at the Ljubljana University and the Chengdu University in China, Nina came to Bulgaria looking for a new experience. She finds Bulgaria quite different from her home country. Unlike Slovenians, Bulgarians pay more respect to tradition and their past, probably due to the tougher type of Soviet-style Communism they lived in from 1944 until 1989, she says.
 
However, some irregularities in Bulgaria's current corporate policy also originate from the Communist system, adds Matiaz. "We have had feudalism in Slovenia. If one goes up the social ladder, it is because of their good job, not because of close relationships with someone up there, as it is in Bulgaria."
 
After being part of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro–Hungarian Empire, at the beginning of the twentieth century Slovenia joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was renamed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. At the end of World War II, the Slovenes became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Josip Broz Tito, who headed the federation, tried to balance between Western democracies and the Communist bloc, giving Yugoslavian citizens broader economic and personal freedoms than the citizens in the Soviet-dominated Eastern bloc had. In 1991, the independent Republic of Slovenia showed up on the European map.

Despite some irregularities in Bulgaria, Matiaz prefers to work in the Black Sea country. As a native Slovenian speaker providing support to Slovenian customers of a leading mobile phone manufacturer, he gets a higher salary than the one his Bulgarian colleagues receive. It allows him to live well and even save money, something impossible in his home country right now, he says.
 
"The standard of living in Slovenia keeps rising while the salaries remain at the same level. A young person with a university degree receives a net salary of about 700-800 euro while the rent for a one-room apartment in Ljubljana is about 400 euro." For comparison, a monthly net salary for a call centre job in Bulgaria usually moves in the range from 500 euro ($702) to 800 euro, while one can rent a one-room apartment in Sofia for 150-200 euro.

The global economic crisis is taking its toll on Slovenia’s export-oriented economy which resulted in cutting work hours and jobs. The economy of the tiny Alpine country shrank by 8.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2009, while Bulgaria reported an annual contraction of 3.5%. In May, Slovenia and Bulgaria reported an unemployment rate of 8.9% and 7.08%, respectively.
 
Many companies prefer to hire native speakers to support their customers in different countries, even if they will have to pay more. This makes Matiaz, who is currently looking for a new job, believe that he has big chances to find a job at another call centre in Bulgaria. Such a job can be interesting if you work on an interesting project, he adds. “I would love to go to Slovenia on trips and holidays, but not to work there.”
 
Nina agrees, adding that she would like to go back to Slovenia when she gets old. “After I have visited and lived in many countries, I will return to my fireplace in Slovenia.”

($=0.7125 euro)