Call centres unlikely to move abroad, says IDA

THE large multinationals which have set up call centres in Ireland providing tens of thousands of jobs, which service Europe, the Middle East and Africa, are unlikely to close up and move to a cheaper Far Eastern location according to the IDA.

Colm Donlon, press officer for the IDA said Irish call centres differed from the typical British model and offered a broader range of back office functions.

His comments come after yesterday's news Prudential was closing one of its call centres in Britain with the loss

of 850 jobs and moving operations to India. Prudential's move to Bombay - where union estimates suggest salaries will be around a fifth of British rates - joins a growing list of big service companies in Europe and the US that have moved call centres to India.

Prudential said the project would save £16m (€25.5m) per year from 2006 and would incur a one-off restructuring charge of £20m (€31.7m) by the end of 2004.

Many of the large IT companies have located their EMEA call centres in Ireland such as Dell in Bray and IBM in Blanchardstown but Mr Donlon said they would not pull out of Ireland in a similar move to Prudential. Ten years ago the IDA promoted Ireland to US companies or their EMEA call centres "Ireland is developing a network of more high-level call centres which would be more like the US system: more back office, technical services, customer support and financial management," said Mr Donlon.