Talk about thankless tasks. The lot of these workers has received increasing attention in recent months, amid fears of poor working conditions in a rapidly growing sector, which employs more people than coalmining, steelmaking and vehicle production combined. Workers at NHS Direct, the health service helpline, were apparently told to pretend to be answer machines when the system was hit by technical problems over Christmas.
Call centres make good economic sense to companies.
By shifting customer service from the High Street to a small number of sites, they stand to make considerable savings. Such economies can be increased by locating in a depressed area with a surplus of cheap labour and government subsidies. Two-thirds of the people who join us don't make it passed their second month Call centre employee Jonathan, who works at a major call centre in northern England, has seen this staggering turnover at first hand. Two-thirds of the people who join us don't make it past their second month. Companies have been accused of taking a cavalier attitude to happiness of their staff, preferring to hire agency workers rather than investing time and money in a full-time workforce.