Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), together with Argyll and the Islands Enterprise (AIE) are inviting people to attend two open days in Argyll aimed at demystifying call centre work.

The events will also allow the enterprise agencies to gather information on individuals interested in working in this sector. This data will then form the basis of a skills register which will be used to help attract new employment opportunities to the area.

The open days - at the Royal Hotel in Oban on Tuesday 20th March and the Town Hall in Campbeltown on Thursday 22nd March - will give people a real insight into call centre work with presentations from customer contact centre operators such as Telecom Service Centres (TSC) and IBM. HIE will also be on hand to tell people about the tele-business revolution which has already created over 3,000 jobs in the Highlands and Islands - a figure which is expected to rise to 5,000 by the end of next year.

Claire MacLean of HIE's Inward Investment team said: "We are keen to build on past successes by attracting new contact centre operators to the area and the skills data will play a key role in this strategy. The need for this information, which will help to strengthen the marketing of the AIE area, is one of the major driving forces behind these events.

"The availability of good people is a key factor when is comes to choosing a business location and it is well documented that the skills of the local workforce combined with their flexibility and adaptability have acted as a major incentive for those operators who have already located in the Highlands and Islands area."

Chief executive at AIE, Ken Abernethy said: "Customer contact centres have presented us with the opportunity to create valuable jobs in fragile parts of Argyll and we have already seen successes in Rothesay and Dunoon with TSC and Database Direct.

"We are gearing up for more growth in this sector having recently completed an advance office building in Campbeltown which is suitable for customer contact centre operations, and we are also investigating the possibility of another development in Oban."