According to a new report, more than 50,000 jobs were created in call centers in the UK last year despite outsourcing to India. This dispels fears of job shortages because of offshore outsourcing.

Steve Morrell of ContactBabel said, "The UK contact center industry continues to grow at a healthy and sustainable rate, driven by the expansion of existing operations, rather than the opening of new contact centers. It is currently worth £17 billion to the UK economy.

Morrell continued, "As we predicted, 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 and the amount of new work going offshore is slowing. We expect the UK's contact center industry to continue to grow steadily over the next five years."

The report showed that call centers account for almost 5 percent of all jobs in the UK's North East, and over 4 percent of all jobs in the North West, Scotland and Yorkshire. The study also said that the South East has the greatest number of contact centre staff with almost 175,000 jobs in 2005.

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