Media reports suggest that more than 450 employees of 24/7 Customer Care may be asked to relocate from their facility in Gurgaon near here or seek alternate jobs following a reduction in the offshoring operations of one of the company's clients.

A report appearing in The Hindu Businessline quoting a senior official of the company said that one of its clients had announced a phased reduction of their call centre partnerships in India as a strategic initiative. The official indicated that 24/7 Customer was one of three service providers who would be impacted.

On its part, the company had offered the affected employees the twin options of pursuing their careers at other centres of 24/7 or finding alternate job options with other employees, a task for which the company would assist them. The official claimed that about 70 per cent of the employees had accepted the offer.

The report also quoted Sam Chopra, President of the Business Process Industry Association of India to confirm the slowdown in the BPO industry growth rate. He said companies were internalising and getting risk averse to expansion.

In addition, while many companies were earlier comfortable maintaining a certain percentage employees on bench for instant ramp-up, now with slowdown headwinds affecting key markets, that may no longer be the case, the report said.