When negotiations ended in July to keep Convergys anchored downtown for the next 30 years, the Cincinnati-based company had won $196 million worth of incentives in return for its pledge to add at least 225 jobs over the next three years.

Company executives also said they would seek to double their downtown workforce to 2,900 employees over 15 years.

But those job numbers are dwarfed by the rapid expansion of the Convergys workforce outside the U.S., especially in two developing countries, India and the Philippines.

In those two countries, Convergys has hired thousands of skilled workers for a fraction of what its American workers earn.

Call center workers like the ones Convergys hires typically make $25,000 to $30,000 a year in the United States. But that same job pays about $4,000 a year in India.

The company plans to hire many more workers overseas. By the end of next year — barring substantial layoffs — the five-year-old company may employ as many as 15,000 workers in the Philippines and India as its worldwide employment swells from about 48,000 today to 56,500.

Convergys already has created 6,000 jobs in India and another 550 in the Philippines in the last two years.

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