Qatar Airways opens contact centre in Wroclaw!

This is great for the Polish economy, hundreds of jobs created. I travel with Qatar quite a lot, it's a top, quality airline! Those looking for jobs, try their website. I would imagine Qatar's wage structure is very competitive (Arab money) but realistically, they're running a business and i believe opening a contact centre in Poland is more cost effective, so i expect the pay to be just about the average market rates!

Here's the linkz:

qatarairways.com/english_global/press-release.page?pr_id=pressrelease_pressrelease_20121003

Call center... well, better that than nothing but I would rather like to see it in Białystok or Olsztyn... haveing vast regional differences in development is not good for anyone in the long term.

Lublin would have been a wonderful choice, but I guess Wroclaw has the office space and IT infrastructure to support it.


No, it's a total disaster. Spain is showing that right now.

I really don't know why more companies aren't opening up call centres in Lublin - it has a huge young potential workforce, decent connections to Warsaw and now an international airport. Wroclaw costs are already high, comparatively.

Dutkiewicz is doing a lot to bring investors to Wrocław, they even underlined it in this press release.

He's doing a great job of it - I always thought that he would make a fantastic President of Poland.

Even his influence is having a great job outside of Wroclaw - Walbrzych is starting to get attention now, too.

Not sure that Poland should bring more call centers instead of some "real" business into the country. I recently read an article in our local newspaper about call centers in India, and even there they have an exorbitant employee turnover rate (> 60%) because the people can't cope with the xenophobic verbal attacks of the customers. American corporations are bringing their call centers home already because the customers here are not willing to talk to someone with a basic command of English any longer.

Well - it's a good way to develop the basic infrastructure needed, as well as providing a good reason for people to start learning languages.

It's not the best thing ever, but take Allegro for instance - their normal method of recruitment for non-technical jobs is to hire from people who work for their help desk first.

Best airline I've ever flown with. "Qatar Airways opens new WAW-LHR route" would be even better news, but we can only dream.

Its been like this since the dawn of civilization. People migrate to locations with desirable geographical features, it used to be a river, a natural harbor now its an airport , proximity to a local workforce or a multitude of other things


Connections to Warsaw are obviously not important if neither your customers or headquarters are there. Krakow has terrible connections to Warsaw yet its the number one destination for IT companies in Poland and CEE.

Wroclaw has proximity to Germany and Krakow, good motorways, infrastructure and workforce. Plus the weather is a bit better than Lublin - that can have far more influence than you would expect.

Only three areas of Poland are expected to have population growth over the coming decade, Warsaw, Krakow and the Tricity area. Growth areas attract companies, which increase growth, which attract companies etc.


A link to their Doha hub give Poland a load of potential destinations. Great news.

Makes me wonder what was done in the city since 1989 if the basic infrastructure still has to be developed.

But that used to happen naturally, that is not really the case now. Wrocław is rich, so is investing a lot in attracting new investors and in result is getting richer and so on.. in result we are getting overcrowded aglomerations with skyrocketing real estate prices, traffic problems... and depopulated cities, which are collapsing as they can't afford to maintain infrastructure, schools etc. In small government scenario, which I personally would like to see, It would be just one of disadvantages overhelmed by other advantages, (besides It wouldn't be that big, a lot of what Wrocałw is doing is guiding investors through countless nonsense regulations created by big government) but in big government reality, poor areas are not left alone, taxpayers are spending a lot on various "programms for underdeveloped areas" and such, and they are still poor... It would be much better to help them attract some investors then "support" them endlessly.

Indeed. As I'm going to be in HK again soon, I'm seriously considering using the connection from WAW, and combining it with a sneaky trip to PL on the way lol.

My god. How naive. He basically bankrupted the city of Wroclaw. Cronyism is flourishing. Allegations of corruption are being levelled left and right. Oh yea, "basic infrastructure"? Har har har

And where are those allegations coming from? Could it be that the major political parties are perhaps slightly afraid of him?

Surely you're not so naive as to believe that they wouldn't try and smear him at every opportunity?

As for the spending - city mayors really don't have that much executive power.

i tend to agree with this point of view.

either way, the truth will come out when he (the mayor) leaves office.

Why ?

in short, i don't like the way he gets things done.

Allegations? Facts. What am I, some political lackey? My only interest in getting this guy jailed for what's he's done is because I see how bad the city has become.

A chance perusal of Gazeta Wroclawska ought to provide you with enough details. If you want my list of his gigantic f-ups over the past ahem... 10 years as mayor... just let me know. Here's a short one: the stadium, the NFM, the public transport system, taking credit where it's not due, Urbancard, OpenWroclaw, the roads, misuse of public monies, building up an incredible debt and hiding it under the carpet, cronyism, incompetence, the Dynamicom scandal, absolutely useless investments and public projects (my favorite now is the gondola over the Odra).

No, PO/PiS/PSL/SLD are not afraid of him. In fact I'm flabbergasted that they haven't jumped on every opportunity to nail him for all that's come out in the past month or so. I'd go so far to say that it just shows you how ineffective and pathological local politics really are in Poland. PO actually said they won't even bother running against him in the coming elections.

As for the spending, city mayors have a huge say in what and what doesn't get built and where money is allocated, especially in this case where the reigning party in Wroclaw is named after the mayor...

Oy vey. The problem is that Dutkiewicz was actually competent his first few years as mayor and it's left a positive impression on most individuals who don't really follow what's going on in the city and only look at the few nice shiny flashy things that have popped up here and there. Trust me, underneath that glitter it all stinks to high heavan.

If the electorate are content, isn't that what wins votes and retains his power? Ipso facto he is doing something right, non? Not that I know him at all, but just sayin'.

I voted for him myself last election. But oh how the tides have turned.

The electorate are very content. But he is an incredibly powerful man - powerful to the point where other political parties have a lot to gain by smearing him as much as possible. If he was to start forming coalitions at the local government level, he could easily gain a significant amount of power in Poland. It's no surprise that the mainstream parties are attempting to put him down - there are elections in less than 2 years, and a serious coalition of independent mayors would be a serious threat to the Government.

Politics in Poland has always, always worked on the basis of who can smear the others as much as possible rather than actually being based on reality.

Well, I don't know enough about the situation here, but I do hear a lot of people telling me that some parties play dirty in Poland. But they do in many countries, I think. (To their shame of course. Nobody should enter politics unless they are 100% trustworthy and put citizens first, says moi, incredibly naively.)


As I said above, I don't know enough about things here, but I can confirm others that I speak to casually here also don't seem a fan of his any more although they don't sound massively disenchanted but all the same they make it clear he ain't all that.

I don't know why they have to "smear" him or play dirty. All it would take is publishing the budget from last year or tallying up the numbers of how much the stadium actually cost. The opposition is part of the city council. They have access to this info. Why don't they do it? Hmmmm Even Janicki is keeping his mouth shut, and he knows pretty much all there is to know that happened in the past two years. Hmmm I wonder why. Hmmm... hmmm... You don't need to be a rocket scientist here. With Dutkiewicz in town everyone became a winner. These porkers have their fingers so deep in the pie that no one will even dare say a peep.

Wait, do you even know who Janicki is? Do you even know how corrupt the courts are in Wroclaw? Do you even live in Wroclaw?

Edit: You mentioned he's powerful. He's not. But he's got a few heavy backers behind him as long as he toes the line. You can see it by how he laps up everything Solorz did and does.

Great news from today (or actually two days ago), 50% of MPK's buses inspected actually had their registration taken away after a quick check by the ITD. 50%...

Do you mean they were mechanically unsound or that they polluted the roads? Please let me know what it was about. I am very much against the pollution caused by poorly filtered diesel exhausts -- they are potentially carcinogenic.

It's certainly part of it - but remember, everyone in Wroclaw has been gaining in recent times, not just the politicians. If you look at the differences between Wroclaw and Poznan, it's pretty clear which city is winning the race these days. Like it or hate it, he's done an absolutely amazing job of attracting inward investment to not just Wroclaw, but the whole Dolnoslaskie region.

As for why the opposition doesn't do it - would they dare? His personal popularity is such that it's unlikely that anyone would believe them. But I think what you're saying is the same story all over Poland.


Polish courts, corrupt? Come on, we all know that the justice system is broken in Poland as a whole. As for living there - I'm there almost every month.


Having heavy backers and immense personal influence says to me that he has power. You only need to see how he pops up everywhere to see that the man enjoys a lot of support from the powers that be - and as I said, if he was to start translating this into coalition building at the local level (where parties are traditionally very weak) - he could have them on the back foot. The current situation where he stays in Dolnoslaskie suits everyone, I think.


I don't even want to start talking about that useless ******* excuse for a public transport company. I tried to hire a tram from them for a corporate event. I started 6 months in advance, and was constantly told to "call in a few weeks'. It got to around 2 months before the event, when it was discovered that they couldn't supply a tram after all (despite saying that they could, just that signing the contract had to wait). Then they offered to supply a bus, which was grudgingly agreed to - only to back out of that a few weeks later. A total, complete joke of a company.

(and yes, Dutkiewicz should be hammered for that - the state of Wroclaw MPK is unbelievable, and I'm not surprised that 50% of the buses were taken off the road.)

This. The ITD is even deciding whether to inform the prosecutor about this. I mean seriously, 50%?

Given the state of the wrecks running around Wroclaw, I'm really not surprised.

Related:

Wrocław outlook downgraded by Fitch ratings agency

Note the outlook has been downgraded only. Am surprised, seems buzzing. I was quite unaware of it, as I don't really read the papers usually due to the language barrier and also people always say the newspapers are full of bias and propaganda which puts me off bothering.


I've already mentioned on the forum that the coffers are empty and the city is broke.