US to lose 6% of call centers by 2008

More than 140,000 call center jobs will vanish from the United States over the next four years as companies seek to lower customer service costs by shipping work to Canada and other countries with lower labor costs, according to Datamonitor. The number of American call centers will decline 6% by 2008, from 50,600 today to 47,500. At the same time, Canada will sprout 800 new ones, along with 93,000 new call center agent jobs, the report says.