Idaho’s telephone call center jobs have helped urban areas and their surrounding towns train, sometimes re-train and gainfully employ their local workforce.
Telephone call centers have developed a concentration in Idaho, employ 9,300 workers and inhabit every region in Idaho except for one, north-central Idaho near Lewiston. Despite the lower-than-average wages, these centers also provide entry-level employment that benefits local communities and surrounding areas.
Telephone call centers tend to locate in Idaho’s urban areas because of the need for larger pools of workers and accessible commercial air service.
Based on the location-quotient, Idaho ranks second behind Utah among its regional neighbors for the concentration of call centers. The comparative concentration of workers is commonly referred to as the location quotient. Anything higher than ‘1’ indicates a greater concentration of jobs in that industry than the nation’s. Idaho’s LQ is 3.02 while Utah is 3.38. Surrounding states such as Montana, Wyoming and Nevada either have a different concentration of industries, or their job base as a whole is too large for call centers to achieve a high level of concentration. Washington and Oregon have a large industry base and are too diverse to report such concentrations.
