The global call center positions, which grew at an average annual rate of about 4% over the past 15 years, have now shifted to an annual contraction of about 4%.

Data from Revelio Labs shows that the total number of global call center employees has decreased by 5.3% from the peak in December 2023, ending over a decade of continuous expansion. This metric has declined year-on-year for eight consecutive quarters, with the decline deepening each quarter, and the most recent quarter saw the largest drop. The decline first appeared in high-income countries and then spread to middle and low-income markets, with offshore outsourcing no longer able to offset the overall contraction. By the fourth quarter of 2025, all income group markets are expected to show negative growth.

Research from Goldman Sachs indicates that call center employment levels in the U.S. are 39% below historical trends, 33% lower in Canada, and 27% lower in Germany, making it one of the industries most affected by AI among developed economies. There are approximately 2.9 million customer service representatives in the U.S., with an average annual growth of 3.2% from 2015 to 2019, shifting to an average annual contraction of 4.2% from 2023 to 2025. Data from Pave Data Lab covering 386,500 new hire data shows that the proportion of new hires entering customer service roles has dropped from 8.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 2.88% in the third quarter of 2025, a decline of over 65%.

TP Group aims to achieve annual savings of €150 million to €170 million through AI and cost-cutting plans. The CEO of TaskUs stated that AI agents could reduce customer service costs by 25% to 50%. Salesforce cut about 4,000 customer service roles after deploying AI agents, and Klarna's AI assistant took on the workload equivalent to 700 employees. Forrester predicts that by 2031, customer service representative positions in the U.S. will decrease by 13.5%, from about 2.59 million to 2.24 million. A Gartner survey shows that 63% of customer service leaders are reducing headcount through natural attrition, and 31% plan or have implemented layoffs.

In 12 middle-income countries, only 10.8% of call center leavers transitioned to technical support, customer success, or software data positions, where median salaries can increase by 7% to 13%. Nearly half moved to other customer service, sales, or office positions with declining salaries. Software and data positions pay more than twice the hourly rate of call centers and grew by 8.9% last year, while customer success and customer relations positions have a 50% premium and grew by 7.2%, and technical support has a 31% premium and grew by 2.6%. The entry rate into call centers dropped from 25.1 out of every 100 workers to 17.2, with the contraction primarily due to a slowdown in hiring rather than an acceleration in departures.

Market Mechanism: Companies are replacing high-volume routine inquiries with AI chat and voice agents, concentrating human resources on complex judgment scenarios, with funding flowing to AI tool suppliers and remaining high-skill customer service positions. Traditional call center operators are under pressure as inquiry volumes decouple from workforce size, and offshore bases are shrinking simultaneously. Software development, data analysis, and technical support positions benefit, with both hourly wages and growth rates exceeding those of call centers.

Source: Public Information