New Mexico enjoys a strong and growing back office sector comprised primarily of customer service, technical support, order taking, claims processing, bilingual customer support, accounts payable and mail processing.
In New Mexico, businesses can find skilled labor and afford it too. The state offers the lowest average production wage in the region, with many salaries at double-digit discounts to the national average and also a highly diverse, bilingual workforce.
Business Facilities magazine ranks New Mexico #6 in Cost of Labor in 2011.
New Mexico also has some of the most competitive wages in the U.S. for back office workers. Most back office positions are 15-20% below national averages and significantly below salary averages in many states we compete in.
Employees fluent in both English and Spanish enable an efficient process that reaches a wide span of customers. New Mexico is officially a bilingual state, and 23% of adults speak Spanish. Bilingual service is available at most centers in New Mexico, a unique trait for the industry.
Additionally, spouses and partners of military personnel stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base, Cannon Air Force Base, and Holloman Air Force Base provide a skilled, dependable workforce. Many are bilingual, fluent in languages such as German, Spanish and Italian. Industry experts maintain that communities can support 3-5% of their workers at service centers before wage pressures become problematic. With just 1.6% (
statistic to be confirmed) of workers in New Mexico employed at call centers, the labor force has plenty of room to accommodate more employers. Saturation has not occurred in New Mexico as there are more workers than there are jobs.
New Mexico is home to approximately two dozen customer service centers statewide, with some of the largest U.S. consumer companies represented. Major employers include:
- Bank of America
- Blue Cross / Blue Shield
- Cardinal Health
- Citi Cards
- CyraCom
- Department of Homeland Security / Lockheed Martin
- ETelecare Global Solutions
- Express Scripts
- Fidelity Investments
- Gap Inc.
- Hewlett Packard
- Intersections
- JC Penney
- Lowe’s
- Outcomes Health Solutions, Inc.
- PR Newswire
- PreCheck, Inc.
- Prime Therapeutics
- SEI
- SiTel
- Social Security Administration
- Sprint PCS
- Southwest Airlines
- Teleservice Center for Social Security
- T-Mobile
- U.S. Forest Service
- Verizon Wireless Data Technical Support Center
- Victoria’s Secret
- VMS