The next division of labour: work skills in Australian and Indian call centres

Using a comparative work force survey of Australian and Indian call centre workers, the question of whether the outsourcing of info-service work portends a new division of labour is addressed. Evidence is presented that the work conducted in both Australian and Indian call centres is semi-skilled in nature. Work in India is managed more tightly but also offers greater variety, while in terms of required skills call centre employment is comparable to that which is conducted `in-house' in Australia.The differences that exist are mainly to be found in the labour forces that perform the work. Labour force profiles in business process outsourcing give rise to contradictions that are specific to the Indian context.