Employment in the teleservices industry is growing at such a pace that the Government fears there won't be sufficient numbers of qualified people available to fill the jobs.

From no call centres in 1992, there are now about 60 call centres in the Republic employing more than 6,000 people. There is "a whole raft of projects across a range of sectors," says Gerry Sharkey, IDA's business development manager - international services.

The reservation type companies, such as American Airlines and Hertz, primarily have a requirement for languages. Some of the PC call centres such as Gateway and IBM are also multilingual but others such as Dell conduct business in English only.

As to the type of people they are looking for, Sharkey says that the higher end of the market, for instance Oracle's call centre, might require a computer science degree with a language. The reservations companies are usually looking for Post Leaving Cert graduates rather than thirdlevel graduates.

To meet this need, the Government has put a new two-year PLC course in place. This year, there are some 1,100 first-year places on the international teleservices course which is offered in PLC colleges around the Republic. Minimum education requirements are a grade B in both ordinary-level English and one ordinary-level Continental language in the Leaving Cert or equivalent.