Minister announces study into call centre jobs 'offshoring'

Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt has launched a sector study into the global challenges and "myths" facing the UK call centre industry.

Visiting a Royal Bank of Scotland call centre in Bristol today, Ms Hewitt announced that the study would assess the ability of the call centre industry to respond to opportunities and challenges of the global market.

The Minister said: "The fact is our service sector is thriving. We lead the world in financial services, accountancy, consultancy and business services. Our service sector now accounts for almost 21 million jobs and 70% of our economy. But it is against this background that the decisions of a number of firms to move their back office and call centre operations offshore has been painful.

"While any job loss is tough for the individual and communities affected, we must challenge the myth that our call centre sector is in terminal decline."

She also denied that protectionism offered any sort of solution.

Ms Hewitt invited business, unions and interested parties to contribute to the wider debate about offshoring, and announced that she will be chairing a round-table seminar on offshoring in the New Year.

Responding to the announcement Amicus the UK's largest private sector union welcomed the study into what it described as the "blight of offshoring", but challenged the claim that the decline in jobs was a "myth".

The union condemned today's DTI move as "missing the target," pointing out that not only call centre jobs but also other jobs such as IT, administration and back office jobs were in danger of going abroad.

A DTI paper on the broader UK service sector published today revealed that overall the UK is benefiting from the opportunities offered by the global market in services.

The DTI is commissioning independent research on competitiveness factors in the UK call and contact centre sector industry. The study will seek to identify the key factors contributing to relative competitiveness in the UK call centre sector and the industry's capability to respond to the increasingly global market for call centre products and services.

The study will begin in January with its initial findings reported by end of March.

Earlier this week Aviva, the parent company of insurance giant Norwich Union, announced that 2,350 jobs were to go "offshore" to India. The HSBC has also declared its intention to offshore 4,000 jobs.

(SP)