Fears of large-scale job losses in Sussex's customer service industry because of work being outsourced to low-cost countries like India were soothed this week after it emerged 50,000 jobs were created in UK call centres last year.

The South-East employs the greatest number of contact centre staff, with almost 175,000 jobs in the sector in 2005, according to a study by industry analysts ContactBabel.

There have been several hundred jobs going to India from Sussex call centres over the last couple of years, but fears the trickle would turn into a flood have proved unfounded.

Last year American Express caused controversy when it transferred 123 jobs from Sussex House in Burgess Hill to India and a further 65 to a finance centre in the US.

Previously a number of customer service jobs were lost in Horsham, West Sussex, when insurance giant Royal & SunAlliance moved 1,100 call centre jobs to India at the end of 2004.

But, according to ContactBabel, the industry, despite a boom in offshore outsourcing, remains bouyant and is still on course to employ a million workers by the end of 2007.

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 industry to continue to grow steadily."

Mark Froud, chief executive of business support organisation Sussex Enterprise, said: "The 24-hour culture where we expect to call a bank or service provider at a time that suits us, has greatly contributed to the growth of the call centre.

"Efficient and well-run call centres can offer significant benefits to consumers, and people are becoming more used to using them for basic inquiries.

The centres themselves are generally better-run than they once were, with employers more understanding of the pressures staff are under and the difficulty of working to a prescriptive script. These three factors combined will no doubt encourage the growth of call centres for some time."

According to government figures there are almost 600,000 people employed in the call centre industry across 17 different sectors ranging from finance to transport and travel.

ContactBabel predicts expansion in the retail sector which it reckons will overtake the financial services sector as the highest user of call centres, accounting for more than 700 of the UK's 5,200 call centres by 2008. This expansion in the retail sector will be driven by the increase in telephone support required by internet shoppers.

Thursday, February 23, 2006