Call Center Hiring

 

A new report by CB Richard Ellis (CBRE)’s Labor Analytics Group reveals a significant net gain in American contact center employment in the first five months of 2009. New positions far exceeded layoffs and closures, resulting in 17,000 additional jobs. The growth rate is also 45 percent greater than it was for the same period last year.

 

While there were in May 2009 more jobs lost than in April 2009: 1,854 compared with 1,604, these were more than offset by 6,227 new positions as opposed to 4,638 over the same period.

 

Also during the 12-month period ending May 2009, the U.S. contact center industry added approximately 29,331 jobs: more than double the level from a year ago; the 12-month growth through May 2008 netted only 14,126 jobs.

 

At the same time the U.S. captured about 43 percent of all new worldwide contact center job growth. This is up from 32 percent a month ago. While new U.S. hiring has increased: 4,373 net jobs in May 2009 from 3,034 from April 2009, international net new employment expansion slipped from 6,368 to 5,925 over the same period.

 

Offshore sites led the way size-wise in May 2009, with Sitel and TeleTech opening 2,000 seats in The Philippines, followed by Medtronics with a 1,400 seat center in San Antonio, Texas. In a move that will help the families of beleaguered auto industry workers, General Warranty Services is opening the fourth largest center worldwide that month, with a 1,000-seat facility in Detroit, Mich. Egypt made the ranks with the fifth biggest new contact center: a 700 seat center in Cairo opened by Stream Global Services.

 

The American contact center job gains are especially striking when compared with the total U.S. employment picture. CBRE cited U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showing that the U.S. employment overall is continuing to decline, with the unemployment rate climbing 0.5 percent to 9.4 percent in May 2009 from 8.9 percent in April 2009. What CBRE calls the “true unemployment rate”, which includes marginally attached workers and those who work part-time for economic reasons, increased to 16.4 percent from 15.8 percent over the same period.

 

While the BLS also reported that nonfarm payroll employment fell by less than expected as a sign of better times ahead, the firm said that “other people believe that the number estimated by the BLS, is a significant underestimation of how many jobs were truly lost in the past month. Each month, the BLS uses the ‘Birth Death Model’ to hypothesize the number of jobs created by companies too small or too new to be identified. May 2009’s ‘Birth Death’ estimate was 220,000 jobs, which many people believe to be an overestimation by the BLS.”

 

There is also a striking difference in the drivers behind the contact center growth domestically and worldwide. While outsourcers were responsible for over 80 percent of the expansion globally, they only generated 20 percent of new positions in the United States. Instead in-house facilities, led by healthcare-related (27 percent) and telecommunications (21 percent) pushed U.S. growth. This jibes in many respects to April 2009 BLS data that shows that health and education services, as well as the government, continue to be the only sectors, reports CBRE “to gain jobs.”