Cape Town’s booming call centre industry created 6,000 additional jobs last year, according to a new report, which also revealed that employment in the sector has grown by more than 20% a year since 2005.

The joint report, by CallingtheCape and Deloitte, found that of the 215 companies surveyed, total employment in the industry grew by 26% during 2007-08, while the number of agents increased by 29% to 20,428.

Offshoring – agents working for overseas companies – has helped to support the strong growth, providing 36% of the growth over the last five years.  15% of agents in the industry now work exclusively on offshore programmes compared with less than 1% in 2002.

“South Africa is now a favoured offshore location for UK companies offering multi-lingual capabilities like Dutch, French, German, Portuguese and Italian to the European market,” says the report.