Employment Trends

Customer service and call center jobs continue to grow, despite the outsourcing of this type of work to other countries in recent years.

In 2004, 2,062,900 were employed as customer service representatives in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number is expected to rise 23% to 2,534,200 by 2014.

The median pay for a customer service representative in the United States in 2005 was $13.22, equivalent to $27,500. The bottom 10 percent of customer service reps made less than $8.57 per hour, while the top 10 percent made more than $21.54.

Customer service representatives and people with call center jobs must be able to assess customer needs and fulfill those needs in a satisfactory manner. They also must be able to speak, read and write in English, as well as conduct basic clerical duties such as typing, work processing, data entry and filing.

In recent years, many large companies began to outsource these types of jobs to foreign countries, such as India. However, some studies have indicated this employment trend is beginning to reverse itself.