Call centre jobs boom

Fears over offshoring appear to be unfounded as employment growth in call centre-related jobs in the UK has been nearly three times the overall growth in employment, according to an article in September's Labour Market Trends.

The report, published today by the Office for National Statistics, shows that imports and exports of services such as computing and 'other business services' (which includes call centres) show that the UK has a steady current account surplus in both sectors.

In spring 2005, UK employment in IT and call centres stood at 1.05 million. It had grown by 8.8% in the previous four years, compared with overall employment growth of 3.2%.

The employment data by region for these occupations do not show any major variation from this trend, which suggests that offshoring has had a minimal impact on the employment prospects of IT-enabled occupations. Redundancies in these occupations have been falling since 2001, although they are higher than the national average.

Labour Market Trends is downloadable free at www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=550