§ Mr. EtheringtonTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many call centre jobs there were in(a) 1992, (b) 1997 and (c) 2000 in (i) England and Wales and (ii) the City of Sunderland; [130201]
(2) what the average salary was for employees of the call centre industry in (a) England and Wales and (b) the City of Sunderland in (i) 1992, (ii) 1997 and (iii) 2000. [130202]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Bill Etherington, dated 17 July 2000:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent questions regarding the number of call centre jobs and the salaries of employees in call centre jobs. (130201/2)The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is National Statistics major source of labour market data on individuals and the New Earnings Survey (NES) is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in Great Britain. Both surveys use the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) to allocate people to a certain code depending on their occupation. Under the current classification for 1990 (SOC90) call centre staff are allocated to a number of occupation codes, depending on the industrial sector in which they work, which include:
- Telephone salespersons - SOC Code 792
- clerks (not otherwise specified) - SOC Code 430
- counter clerks and cashiers - SOC Code 411
- accounts and wage clerks, book-keepers, other financial clerks - SOC Code 410.
However, these occupations also include those people who do a similar job with the same SOC number, but who do not work in a call centre - e.g. bank and insurance clerks. Thus the number of call centre staff, and hence their salaries, cannot be separately identified.In the newly updated SOC2000, call centre agents/operators will be identified as a separate code. LFS and NES data for SOC2000 will be available in 2001.