Outsourcing jobs to the Den: Wall Street Journal Article

Call Centers Tap People Who Want to Work at Home

January 12, 2006; Page D1

For many years, demand for at-home employment far outstripped supply, giving rise to a perennial crop of work-at-home scams, from pyramid schemes to phony job referrals.

Now, working at home is taking a leap forward -- in the customer-service arena. Instead of sending call-center work to India or the Philippines, a growing number of consumer-products and -services companies, from Office Depot and J. Crew to Wyndham Hotels and Sears Holdings, are outsourcing work to people in their homes here.

The development, driven by expanded broadband access to the Web, cheaper computer technology and improved call-routing systems, has opened the door to an entirely new group of at-home workers. Home-based call-center agents have tripled since 2000, estimates Art Schoeller, a senior analyst for research concern Yankee Group. A survey last August of 350 U.S. and Canadian call centers by Yankee Group found that 24% of agents, or 672,000 workers, are now based in their homes. IDC, a Framingham, Mass., research concern, sees the growth continuing, with home agents increasing at a rate of 24% each year from 2006 through 2010.

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