THOUSANDS of call centre workers in the south have today been given new hope over fears that their jobs will end up being exported abroad.

A study shows call centre workers in the UK are more efficient than counterparts in India - placing a huge question mark over the credibility of the decision by many company directors to outsource thousands of UK call centre jobs to the lower-wage country.

Hundreds of staff in Hampshire - mainly in the financial sector - have seen their jobs replaced by cheaper labour.

Locals earn an average £15,000 a year, while counterparts in India draw £3,000.

Now Usdaw, one of the leading trade unions in the call centre industry, is urging call centre bosses to take note of the trends highlighted in the report by research firm ContactBabel.

The study of more than 300 UK and Indian call centre operations finds that:

On average, UK agents answer 25 per cent more calls each hour than their Indian counterparts, and resolve 17 per cent more of these calls first time.

UK call centre workers tend to stay with their company for well over three years, while Indian call centre workers move on after 11 months, on average.

More than a third of callers to India have to ring back at least a second time. The UK has a first-time resolution rate of more than 90 per cent.

Almost a third of Indian call centres do not measure customer satisfaction, while few perform any pro-active quality checking.

Usdaw general secretary Sir Bill Connor said: "Thousands of UK call centre jobs are being lost to India.

"This report paints a shocking picture of the call centre industry there, and UK call centre bosses should take note.

"The call centre industry must recognise the depth of quality we have in this country. Salary costs might be cheaper over in India, but that seems to go hand-in-hand with poorer quality, less efficiency and more customer frustration."

Steve Morrell, author of the ContactBabel report, said: "It's hard to ignore the salary savings, but if customers get a worse service and end up going to a competitor with a call centre in the UK, then these cost savings will soon disappear."

A growing number of local and national companies are outsourcing large numbers of call centre jobs to India.

One of them is Norwich Union, where 130 jobs are to go by the end of the year from its office at Grosvenor Square in Southampton.

More than 600 workers at Abbey, based at the company's loan and mortgage processing centre at Whiteley, near Fareham, face an uncertain future because bosses have failed to guarantee jobs.

Staff at Lloyds TSB's inquiry centre at Whiteley are also anxious after it emerged that the bank has a pilot scheme in Bangalore.

The Communication Workers' Union estimates that 200,000 jobs nationally are at risk from outsourcing.