I've been trying to compile statistics for different classifications
of hourly employees and have been able to use the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) (http://www.bls.gov/) sucessfully for all major job
categories of interest to me except call centers.  Since call centers
exist accross a multitude of industries, and industry SIC codes are
the classification used by the BLS I can't find an easy breakdown. 
Moreover, I'm interested in the number of call center jobs employeed
in the US accross all US employers as a benchmarked over the past 5
years so see how much the outsourcing trend has affected this job
category in the US.  Source information would be great as well with
the final answer to this question could be phrased as simply as
follows:

2000: #.## million 
2001: #.## million 
2002: #.## million 
2003: #.## million 
2004: #.## million

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 22 Mar 2005 13:57 PST

Hello wilkinmg-ga,

I'm posting this as a clarification to make sure you're notified of
activity on your question. Here are a couple of links to help you
getting the most out of Google Answers.

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

I posted a Comment instead of an Answer because the information I
found didn't come close to giving you what you're looking for and I
didn't have the time to keep digging. In light of the additional
information you posted in Comments, you may want to add a
Clarification to your question. The more information you give about
the context of your question, the more likely that someone will be
able to get you what you need.

All the best.

~ czh ~

Yearly employment statistics for call centers are very hard to come
by. Here is a brief highlight from a recent (very expensive) market
research report.

http://www.incoming.com/statistics/demographics.aspx?SelectedNode=Statistics
There are currently 50,600 call centers in the U.S., containing 2.86
million agent positions. However, the U.S. market is actually
shrinking; by 2008 there will be 47,500 call centers and 2.7 million
agent position. This reduction in market size is due to a combination
of self-service technologies, offshore outsourcing, and the effects of
the federal do-not-call list.

McDaniel Executive Recruiters? 2004 North American Call Center Report, 9-23-2004

http://www.gii.co.jp/english/dc22597_contact_centers.html
The Vertical Guide to Contact Centers in North America 
Pub Time: 2004/08

Yes - I forgot about that site - I came across this one too - didn't
by the report due to the $$$ associated - which you referenc.  There
was another site that referenced 9,000 call center employees that I've
been unable to find subsequentely.  I was *hoping* there were more
than 2.86 call center agents in the US - this number is pretty low -
and I'm not sure it takes into account the companies that have call
centers.  Example - The Limited has a Victoria's Secret Catalog Call
Center - does that count in that number or not and HMO's have Nurse
Hotlines.  Given the number of businesses that are centered around
cueing and routing calls - doesn't 2.8 million seem low?

At any rate - let me know if you can find anything else.  

I've never used this service before so I'm unclear about how to
complete this process.  Clue me in on how / when I'm supposed mark
your work complete and thanks for your help.

MG