The Salt Lake City company said 100 employees will begin training at the center early next week, with employment at the facility climbing over the next four to six months, said Kelley Dworak, Teleperformance president of global service delivery.

The workers at the nearly 41,000-square foot center will handle inbound calls for one of the company's clients, a wireless carrier whose name Teleperformance would not divulge.

Pay is as much as $9 an hour, not including bonuses, which is about average for Utah's call-center industry, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

The company already operates two call centers in Salt Lake and one each in Clearfield and Provo that employ about 2,600 people, Dworak said. Those centers are among 17 it operates nationwide.

Teleperformance, part of the global SR Teleperformance Group, said it expects to expand even more in Utah in 2006.

They aren't the only ones. The Economic Development Corporation of Utah, which handles recruiting work for Utah, said it has received five inquiries from call centers interested in expanding in the state in just the last two weeks.

"We are still definitely on the radar screen for call centers," said Shawn Stinson, EDCU spokesman.

Department of Workforce Services economist Mark Knold said Wasatch Front remains a favorite location for call centers because of the state's young population, which includes students attending the area's schools and colleges who want part-time work with flexible hours.

In fact, 47 percent of Utah's labor force is aged 16 to 35, Knold said, the highest share of young workers of any state. No other state has more than 40 percent of its workers in that age group.

Ultimately, call centers like Utah because its young population makes for easy recruiting and the centers probably have to pay less than they would to attract older workers in other states, he said.

"Call centers get what they want in Utah," he said.