Roberta Fox, president and senior partner with Fox Group Consulting, said companies in India, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates and Ireland have been moving aggressively to bulk up their share of the global market.

India, in particular, has become the world’s call centre capital with its growing pool of English speakers, relatively low wages and modern technological infrastructure. The Indian government has invested heavily in telecommunications and it is estimated that more than one million call centre jobs have been created there in the last decade.

"The labour costs, depending on what country, could be as low as one-tenth," Fox said. "That’s a big deal when, in a call centre business, two-thirds of your operating costs are human capital."

That means costs per call are a mere fraction of those in North America, making it cheaper for companies — regardless of where they are based — to transfer jobs abroad.

Ironically, Indian business and political leaders are merely duplicating a strategy first employed by their Canadian counterparts about 15 years ago.

Call centre operations now exist in every Canadian province, with the largest concentration in the Maritimes — particularly New Brunswick.

In the 1990s, former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna speaheaded a campaign to make his province Canada’s call centre mecca. By touting New Brunswick’s low-cost labour, he succeeded in attracting big name corporations like Purolator Courier Ltd. and Federal Express Canada Ltd.

Currently, New Brunswick’s sector employs more than 20,000 people in about 100 call centres, contributing $1 billion to the provincial economy every year.

But some industry observers suggest that New Brunswick and other provinces are losing ground to lower-cost Asian rivals...

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