Datamonitor has some interesting numbers out today about the impact of globalization on American outsourcing:

• In 2004, 37% of the world's outsourced contact center agent positions were in the United States. By 2008, Datamonitor expects that number to shrink to 25%. In fact, the number of US agent positions is expected to drop from 315,000 in 2004 to 291,000 in 2008.

• Nine out of ten jobs lost in the United States contact center outsourcing industry will be outbound telemarketing jobs. This is attributed to the Do-Not-Call registry and the higher revenues offered by inbound work. In addition, the number of agent positions in offshore and nearshore countries will continue to grow, due to the growing demand from US and captive market businesses.

• Contact center outsourcers are introducing new services to grow revenue and compete more effectively in the US market. Firms that were founded as contact center outsourcers are offering services which overlap other business process outsourcing (BPO) areas, and BPO providers are acquiring contact center capability.

Are there really only 300k outsourced stations in the US? That tracks to something like 5-10% of the total agent population, if you use the accepted figure of 3-5 million FTEs in the US. Doesn't that suggest that the industry as a whole - separate from the outsourcers - is pretty healthy? Outsourcers do, after all, operate in a completely different economic model than traditional inhouse centers.