Telephone call centres
This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in receiving and/or making telephone calls for others. These establishments are engaged in activities such as soliciting or providing information; promoting goods or services; taking orders; and raising funds for clients. This industry also includes establishments primarily engaged in answering telephone calls and relaying messages to clients; and establishments primarily engaged in providing voice mailbox services. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A
- Establishments · CanadaA
- 572
- Under 10 employeesA
- 35%
- Establishments · USA
- 4,456
- Employment · USA
- 436,642
- Payroll · USA
- $15.5B
Size and shape
How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.
Canadian establishments by number of employeesA
Of 572 Canadian establishments with employees, 35% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.
Where they areA
Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
How businesses here compete
The structural profile of subsector 561, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.
Janitorial, landscaping, security and staffing: low capital and easy to start, so margins are competed down to labour cost. Route density and contract retention decide the outcome.
- Who sets the price
- Tender and the client's procurement; labour is most of the cost.
- The software it runs on
- Workforce scheduling, route and work-order management, staffing front and back office.
Market screens and studies
Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.
Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 5614 Business support services covers it.
Software serving this industry
The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.
Sold across the wider branch
And what every business buys · 25 generic categories
Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.
Who works here
The occupations employed in Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.
Concentrated in this sectorA
These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.
And the jobs every business has
Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.
Inside this industry
1 row sits directly beneath 56142. Each has a base report of its own.
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 561420 | Telephone call centres | 572 | screened at 5614 |
Alongside it, under 5614 Business support services
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 56141 | Document preparation services | 332 | screened at 5614 |
| 56143 | Business service centres | 491 | screened at 5614 |
| 56144 | Collection agencies | 189 | screened at 5614 |
| 56145 | Credit bureaus | 57 | screened at 5614 |
| 56149 | Other business support services | 1,122 | screened at 5614 |