A beep in Virgina Marshall’s headset abruptly ends a conversation with a co-worker in mid-sentence, and a screen pops up on her computer monitor. She leans into her workstation.

This Tuesday morning, she is taking calls from food stamp recipients in Missouri and Alabama. Many have problems using their debit cards, including a man in St. Louis who is inquiring why a welfare card he had reported missing isn’t working.

Others call to pre-order Christmas cards. Ms. Marshall reads a script on her computer monitor that opens with the politically correct, yet unseasonable “Happy Holidays” greeting.

Manning works in St. Joseph’s largest and rapidly expanding call center, Ms. Marshall, 59, is part of a rare growth business. When so many other companies have shrunk in the recession, USA 800 has increased its staff by more than 20 percent in the past two years.

The company plans to nearly double its local 300-member work force in the next two years. It’s hiring 15 to 30 new employees a week.

Call centers — popularly staffed by workers with Anglicized names and feigned Western accents in the Indo-Asian basin — have operated in St. Joseph for years.

College students, retirees, aging workers tired of being on their feet — all sit in small cubicles in St. Joseph. All are ready to handle your technical, sales and support needs, or conduct customer satisfaction surveys. These days, they’re busier than ever.

Rocked by the recession and needing to cut costs, companies across the nation have downsized and outsourced their call center operations.

They also have heeded criticism from customers not to outsource to overseas call centers, said Tracy Hatfield, manager at USA 800. The Kansas City-based call center services provider is 100 percent employee-owned and has offices in Mitchell Woods Business Park.

“It’s typically half the cost to go offshore that it is to stay in the United States,” Ms. Hatfield said. “However, a lot of companies feel the push from their clients and customers to stay in the States, and that has definitely helped us.”

USA 800 began in 1997 with a handful of workers on the fifth floor of a loft in Downtown St. Joseph. Today, it has nearly 300 employees and represents more than 100 companies. Hundreds of phone calls come in each hour, every hour of the day, every day of the year.

Call center agents take phone calls for catalogs, insurance companies and the travel and leisure industry.

Some agents call Midas Auto Service stores around the country and act like customers to gauge the store’s customer service, which its corporate office uses to gauge annual bonuses. Other agents — mostly Missouri Western State University students — clack on keyboards in cubicles, providing technical support for an online college textbook company. Sales agents ding a bell with each sale of satellite or mobile phone services.

USA 800 is investing in a $565,000 expansion of its building that will add about 4,000 more square feet and 350 more jobs in the next two years. The starting wage ranges from $7.50 to $9 an hour. Employees can earn incentives and buy stock after a year of employment.

In a year of area layoffs and business closings, news of the call center’s expansion has been welcome. It comes on the heels of a major announcement by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. to add about 175 local jobs through acquisitions and a $150 million expansion along the North Belt Highway.

Ahmad Safi can be reached at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.