London, April 9:

Outsourcing work to India has been controversial, but a new report states that work being switched to India is having little effect on call centres in Britain, which will provide more than a million jobs by the end of this year.

The industry grew by six per cent last year, mainly because of expansion by firms which already have centres based in this country, it found. Research by industry experts ContactBabel showed more than three percent of Britain’s working population is now employed in call centres.

There are around 960,000 jobs in the sector and this will continue to increase in the coming months, it was predicted.

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 20.6 billion pounds to the UK economy. As we predicted in past years, 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.”

“The amount of new work going offshore is slowing, with 2006 seeing several high-profile companies announcing their return to the UK. The UK’s contact centre industry will continue to grow steadily over the next five years.

“By 2010, the UK contact centre industry will be worth almost 30 billion pounds to the UK’s

economy, employing more than 1.1 million people.”