O2 Call Centre Will Bring 1500 New Jobs To Glasgow

 

© The Herald Originally published: 9/5/2005

UNION officials last night welcomed the news that O2, the mobile phone giant, is to create 1500 jobs in Scotland with the opening of a new call centre.

O2, which has been expanding its customer service centres, will tomorrow announce plans for its new office at the Skypark complex, next to the Clydeside Expressway, in Glasgow.

The decision appears to go against recent trends of locating call centres overseas, where employees are paid less than those in the UK.

It also reinforces Glasgow's status as the call centre capital of Europe. Scotland has around 300 call centres employing 56,000 people, or around 2.5% of the working population. Approximately 115 of those call centres are located in Glasgow, providing 20,000 jobs.

O2, which employs 11,000 staff across Europe, has 24 million subscribers worldwide and this year posted profits of £1.75bn.

Bill Spiers, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, said the firm's move to create jobs in Scotland was a positive step forward.

He said: "We identified the need to concentrate on call centre jobs some years ago and worked closely with the employers' body, the Call Centres Association.

"Workers can have a range of skills from selling insurance policies to giving highly complex electronic advice to people all over the world and this is not always acknowledged.

"This is a positive move but it doesn't necessarily mean that the trend to locate overseas has finished."

Two months ago, the company announced plans to cut 500 administration jobs to help finance new call centre workers, as part of a major reorganisation costing £40-45m.

O2's decision follows the announcement in February by Dell, one of the world's biggest computer manufacturers, that it was to open a call centre in Glasgow.

The company will create 850 jobs when it opens a call centre on the site of the former Imperial Tobacco Factory in Alexandra Parade, Dennistoun, which has been converted to a business park.

Earlier this year the Scottish Executive launched a campaign which is aimed at promoting Scotland's call centre industry.