Top 20 Metro Areas with Highest Number of Call Center Employees

In the late ’90s, when the call center industry was emerging, companies began to cluster into metro areas where they could find qualified management and an experienced applicant pool since it was difficult to find workers experienced in the industry. Companies were not as concerned about where their competitors located as there wasn’t much competition in those days.

The call center industry has evolved since then and has grown rapidly into a fully mature industry — creating new challenges for companies going through the site selection process.

“Finding the right balance of labor availability, market competition, real estate and economic incentives has become more complicated as the industry has matured. Utilizing advanced site selection tools to evaluate labor markets has become more critical than ever,” says Brett Bayduss, Principal of Site Selection Group.

Labor markets with many competitors are great for higher-end paying call centers

Today, call centers of all sizes can be found in almost all metro areas in the U.S.  As a result, it is critical to understand who you are competing against for labor when entering a market.  Higher-end call centers, which are referred to as captive, in-house call centers operated by Fortune 500 companies are often the premier employer in a metro area.

These captive call centers typically pay higher wages, offer great employee benefits, and build high-quality facilities with all types of amenities for their employees. As a result, captive centers are able to pull the best agents from other call centers within 30 miles. This location strategy enables these higher-end call centers to truly perform at the highest level with employee attrition well below industry standards.

Market saturation can negatively impact employment conditions for lower-end call centers

At the opposite end of the spectrum, lower-end call centers such as outbound centers, low-wage inbound centers and outsourcing firms have to be very careful when trying to find the best location for a call center. These call centers face the greatest risk when entering a saturated call center market. Employee attrition rates will often exceed 100% annually resulting in a constant recycling of workers. This will negatively impact the performance and profitability of a call center. 

Top 20 metro areas with the greatest number of call center employees

Site Selection Group monitors call center employment in 917 metro areas across the U.S. This data is used to evaluate market saturation and employment conditions. In order to identify the metro areas with the largest amount of call center workers, Site Selection Group has removed some of the mega metro areas such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and other metro areas were the data does not exist. The end result is the following list of metro areas that have successfully attracted numerous call center operations over the last 20 years.

Source: Site Selection Group, Local Economic Development Organizations