Call centres to absorb four in 10 new jobs, says recruitment survey

Nightmares of spending hours trying to glean information or sort out a problem by ringing a company's call centre is set to get far worse for millions of us ­ a survey claims that as many as four out of every 10 new jobs in the UK will be created in this sector.

The UK call centre market will employ more than 650,000 people by 2008, up from the current 400,000, according to a report by Adecco, a recruitment company, and OMIS, a research group.

As well as heavy recruitment in the UK, thousands of new call centre operators are expected to be sought in countries such as India, where workers are highly educated but much cheaper to employ.

Adecco predicted about 100,000 new jobs in call centres would be created in India by UK companies by 2008 ­ with at least 25,000 call centre jobs in Britain now likely to be relocated to the sub-continent.

Many major UK companies are already relying heavily on call centres abroad, including HSBC, which has a large operation in the Indian city of Hyderabad, and Prudential, which also recently said it would set up a centre in India.

In the UK, Harrogate in Yorkshire is the most popular place for call centres, followed by Fareham, Dunfermline, Crewe and Carlisle.

Richard MacMillan, the managing director of Adecco, said: "With over 400,000 people employed in contact centres in the UK, the health of the sector is vital to local economies ­ towns like Harrogate that are attractive to contact centres can expect a corresponding boost to their economies."

In places where competent call centre staff are in demand, companies battle to keep them on the payroll. Adecco found a quarter of companies lose most of these staff within six to 12 weeks of joining.

At the same time companies are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit talented staff for their expanding centres.

More than 90 per cent of companies taking part in the Adecco survey said finding local talent was their most taxing issue, compared with 77 per cent two years ago.