The UK has about 3,650 call centres employing 390,000 people. Staff are mainly women aged 20-30.
Recent statistics confirm an explosive growth in international telephone call centres.
Millions of workers are now employed around the world in this new industry, which is based upon the most sophisticated and intrusive methods of exploitation. Workers are forced to take and make calls one after another, sitting in front of computer monitors for the entire length of their shift, as supervisors constantly monitor their performance electronically. In the United States, estimates of the number of workers now vary from two to seven million, working in 70,000 call centres. Companies in Germany employ 65,000 and in Australia the numbers have reached 60,000. The current expansion rate is 20-30 percent internationally, adding hundreds of thousands of workers each year.