Home-based customer service agents.

Business is strong for home-based customer service providers. I talked with several companies that look for home-based customer service reps and they say they are looking to recruit at least 20,000 new agents through the end of this year. The reason? Some large companies are cutting back on staff positions to save on salary and benefits. One of the first departments they look to outsource -- because they can -- is customer service. From banks and retailers to infomercials, consumer-focused companies require people to answer calls from customers.

For example, LiveOps is actively looking for home-based workers interested in sales, as well as licensed insurance agents for both health and life. Arise is specifically looking for agents with specialized skills in language and sales because its high-tech and retail clients are currently demanding this expertise from home-based agents. More specifically, Arise is seeking to recruit hundreds of French or German bilingual professionals, as well as those with great sales aptitude. The company says former phone-based, car or real estate sales agents could find a good fit with Arise when putting their sales tactics to work.

team doubeclick focuses exclusively on virtual administrative assistants. The company says its client hours billed for 2005 were 8,840 and for 2008 they are on pace to exceed 80,000 client hours.

Freelance opportunities are growing. The work isn't downsized even though the work force is. So many companies are turning to freelancers to fill the void. Freelancing is very viable option for people facing job uncertainty either because they're out of work or need some extra money to make ends meet or create a safety net.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JobClub/story?id=4585337&page=1