ANDERSON — For someone like Kristy McGuire, a call center may offer the right job to put her back in the work force.

Five months ago, the 23-year-old Anderson resident gave birth to twin girls. With no plans to return to her previous job at a photography studio and after hearing about Agape Communications LLC’s planned downtown call center, McGuire said a job with the start-up telemarketing firm “would be perfect.”

Agape, which hopes to eventually bring 400 jobs to Anderson, is the fourth company to announce it would open a call center in east central Indiana since Sallie Mae, the student loan company, said in February 2006 that it would hire up to 700 people to fill a call center in Delaware County.

IBM followed a year later with 500 jobs going to Daleville, and in September 2007, Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. promised the same number of jobs going to a new site in Anderson.

According to the city, Affiliated has already hired more than 200 employees for its Anderson call center. Greg Dodge, the company’s vice president for human resources, said the site should reach 500 workers by the end of the year.

Officials with Affiliated and Agape say the jobs coming to Anderson pay an average of $10 an hour, a rate many people, including McGuire, believe is nothing to scoff at.

She said she and her husband, who is also unemployed, will likely apply with Agape.

Linda Dawson, Anderson’s director of economic development, said residents benefit from new jobs regardless of their stature.

“Some jobs can provide a higher quality of life, some jobs provide a steady second income or some jobs provide the ability to provide basics of life,” she said.

“The community needs all of these jobs.”

And more call center positions could be on the way.

The east central Indiana region could accommodate as many as 1,200 more call center jobs, said Rob Sparks, director of the Anderson-based Corporation for Economic Development.

“We’re about halfway there with the number of people who would be potential employees (in call centers), so there’s probably going to be continued growth in that area,” he said.

The region’s above average unemployment is helping attract call center companies, Sparks said, but more American companies are making a conscious effort to open domestic customer support center to lessen the appearance of sending the jobs overseas.

Jeff Rogers, co-owner of Agape, and Affiliated’s Greg Dodge said unemployment, which rose in Madison County to 7.3 percent in March from 6.9 percent a year earlier, attracted their companies to the area.

During the same year, Indiana’s unemployment rate rose to 5.6 percent from 5 percent.

A Cornell University study released last year found that around the world, most call centers serve domestic populations, except in India where call centers generally serve foreign customers.

The study also found that call centers deal with high turnover rates among employees, with annual turnover reaching as high as 50 percent in some U.S. call centers.

The lost productivity due to turnover equals three to four months of a worker’s pay and is a major cause of low-service quality, the study found.

Agape’s Jeff Rogers said he hopes to decrease turnover by eventually offering employee benefit packages. Greg Dodge of Affiliated Computer Services would not comment on the turnover rate at the company’s 50-plus U.S. call centers.

He described the Anderson site as a “typical” call center.

“It’s a good spot,” he said. “The citizens have a great work ethic.”

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Anyone interested in applying for a job at Affiliated Computer Services’ Anderson call center located at the Flagship Enterprise Center can do so online at www.acs-inc.com.