The trade union, Amicus, which represents a large part of the British call centre market, has announced that it is going to conduct its own investigation into corporate outsourcing of jobs such as call centre work to India.

The union estimates that since last October, 15,000 jobs have been lost in the UK call centre market due to corporate outsourcing to India. The corporations in question are moving many of their call centre operative jobs abroad due in large part to the much lower cost of labour that the sub-continent offers, as well as its largely English speaking population.

The aim of the investigation, said Amicus, is to analyse how decision makers arrive at the business case that is driving companies to either offshore or to make a commercial decision to stay within the UK.

In the recent past Amicus have threatened to take strike action against any employer in the UK who tries to move call centre jobs abroad.

However, with National Rail, Norwich Union and several other UK call centre operators all set to move, it seems likely that for now, the trend will continue.