U.S. Call Center Job Creation Drops While Nearshore and Offshore Growth Continues During First Half of 2022

Call center job creation in the U.S. continued to decline due to extremely tight labor conditions which have forced companies to expand in nearshore and offshore geographies. The U.S. unemployment rate stands at 3.6% as of May which has created significant challenges for hiring and retaining call center workers. Despite U.S. call center wage inflation of approximately 20% over the last couple of years, companies are focusing their site selection efforts in high-growth nearshore and offshore regions such as Latin America, Africa, and the Philippines. To understand the latest site selection trends, Site Selection Group has analyzed call center growth during the first half of each of the last four years.

Global call center job creation recovering

Call center job creation is finally recovering to pre-pandemic levels. Call center site closures and downsizings have decreased as companies have realigned their global footprint with a combination of work-from-home and bricks-and-mortar. The following table provides a summary of the data:

Global Call Center Job Creation
and Site Openings/Expansion

Global Call Center Job Displacement
and Site Closures/Downsizing

Nearshore and offshore regions recovering faster than U.S.

Nearshore and offshore geographies are recovering more quickly than the U.S. due to challenging labor conditions and increased wage costs in the United States. Site Selection Group attempts to track the growth of the industry; however, it has become much more difficult due to the shift to work-from-home which doesn’t often get officially announced. Based on the same methodology for gathering the data, the following table summarizes job creation by region during the first half of the last four years.

Call Center Job Creation by Region

Conclusions

Until unemployment conditions in the U.S. soften, nearshore and offshore regions will continue to gain market share. In addition, the spread in labor costs between the U.S. and other regions continues to increase which has further boosted the value proposition of nearshore and offshore call center site selections. You might also want to review our full assessment of global location trends in the 2022 Call Center Location Trends Report.