Teleservices, call centres and urban and regional development

This article examines the character of call centres, which are attracting c onsiderable interest among economic development agencies seeking to attract inward investment. The paper examines the type of employment provided in c all centres, their locational requirements and their wider impact on local economies. It is argued that information and communications technologies (I CTs) are allowing these teleservice firms to develop in new locations, but that call centres remain constrained in their locational choices especially because of the uneven distribution of labour li is concluded that call cen tres providing teleservices contribute to local economic development, but t he employment created on the whole tends to be of low quality. Few manageri al, professional or technical jobs are created in most call centres, and th ere are few local spin-offs. Inward investment by these sorts of services i n less-favoured areas displays many of the drawbacks associated with tradit ional manufacturing inward investment.