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The call center outsourcing industry has been acknowledged as one of the main factors that underpinned India as a global economic power. Such unprecedented growth comes at a price, and the country’s outsourced workers are paying for it.

Many young professionals who work for the outsourcing industry are starting to realise that behind excellent compensation and appealing career possibilities are seemingly never ending hours of appeasing irate customers, hard to meet quotas, long night shifts, disrupted eating and sleeping schedules, constant deadline pressure.

As a result, outsourced workers suffer from backaches, migraines, anxiety, sleep disorders, depression, obesity, and broken relationships. These may have further consequences later on such as heart, kidney, or liver disease, diabetes, chronic mental illness, or even suicide.

The problems that outsourcing industry workers encounter have gotten worse ever since the global economic downturn last year. Fear of losing their jobs has only added to the daily pressure they have to overcome.

Karuna Baskar, Director of the counselling firm 1to1help.net, says the number of workers coming in with mental health issues such as bi-polar disorder and suicidal tendencies has increased dramatically.

Many outsourced workers come straight from universities and into their first jobs with little or no real life experience. They struggle to adjust from the freedom of a school environment to the more rigorous and disciplined office environment, but there are those who cannot cope, reveals Aashu Calapa. Calapa, Executive VP of HR for Firstsource Solutions, claims that the outsourcing industry loses a percentage of its workers due to stress. These young men and women are not stress hardy and do not have the life experience required to handle some times very aggressive customers and tend to take abuse personally.

Many of these young knowledge workers unwind by spending their hard-earned money by living recklessly. Work and peer pressure, plus the fast lifestyle make their lives more taxing, and not everyone can juggle these western standards along with other more conservative traditional aspects of their lives.

The outsourcing industry is apprehensive at what really goes on with its workers. There are companies that have already taken steps to help their workers, such as providing doctors, on-call counsellors, nutritionists, health benefit, and gym facilities.