ICT and the location of call centres: regional and local patterns

One of the sectors that gained most of the boost in ICT developments is the call centres sector. The focus in this paper is on spatial diffusion patterns of call centres in the Netherlands. The number of call centres has increased rapidly in the last decade and it seems that impacts of call centres on the labour market are still underestimated. We will pay attention to two spatial levels: first, regional and second, local. Given the labour intensity and quality required by call centres and the absence of physical contacts with consumers one might expect that most call centres are located in the more peripheral regions of the country. In those peripheral regions there is less pressure on the labour market and the level of education - in particular the ability to speak English is almost as good as elsewhere in the country. At the local level we are interested in the precise location of the call centres. We expect that they will prefer back office locations or even locations on cheap industrial sites, again due to the absence of physical contacts with consumers. They only will need enough parking space for their employees, since this is a relatively labour intensive economic activity. In this exploratory study we will analyze the spatial diffusion patterns of call centres in the Netherlands and link them to regional labour market developments and other location factors.