Call centres in high demand in UK

Despite outsourcing to India, more than 50,000 jobs were created last year, reports Nabanita Sircar.

Despite outsourcing to India, more than 50,000 jobs were created in call centres in Britain last year, shrugging off fears that recruitment would be hit because of work being outsourced abroad, according to a new report.

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The industry remained on course to employ a million workers by the end of 2007, said analysts ContactBabel. Steve Morrell of ContactBabel said, "The UK contact centre industry continues to grow at a healthy and sustainable rate, driven by the expansion of existing operations, rather than the opening of new contact centres. It is currently worth £17 billion to the UK economy.

"As we predicted, the boom in offshoring to India and other destinations such as South Africa and Eastern Europe has not had the negative effect that some commentators expected and the amount of new work going offshore is slowing. We expect the UK's contact centre industry to continue to grow steadily over the next five years."

The report said call centres were of most importance to the North East, accounting for almost 5 per cent of all jobs. The North West, Scotland and Yorkshire all have more than 4 per cent of their jobs in the contact centre sector.