Sept/Oct 2003

More than 97,000 jobs in UK call centres could have disappeared by 2008, according to a new report by market intelligence specialist Key Note. The report, based on research commissioned from BMRB Access, confirms the general perception that a previously flourishing home market has abruptly gone into decline - even though the total number of jobs in the market is said to be growing.

As an example of the trend, Key Note says the number of full-time posts in BT's UK call centres is expected to fall from 15,800 last year to 13,600 next year.

The big beneficiaries in the sea-change are offshore locations, and in particular India, which is said to have shown "substantial growth" in the past two years, and where the market is expected to be worth £$20 billion by the end of this year.

Other popular offshore call-centre locations are said to include China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, while the US market is said to favour Caribbean and Central and Latin America.

Many consumers don't mind where the call centre is, according to a MORI poll held in September. It found that two thirds of people were more concerned about whether calls were answered quickly and professionally. American was the easiest foreign accent to understand, followed by Australian and then South African. The poll was conducted for GEDA, the investment agency for the province of Gauteng in South Africa.

Key Note says 3.3 million calls are made to call centres in the UK every day, but the total of around 568,000 people employed in the industry this summer was down 1.9 per cent on last year.