This article analyses work and employment conditions in an archetypical industry of the new economy in a Latin American country. Specifically, it focuses on the experience of the call centre industry in Mexico City as a case-study. The article is informed by current debates about the quality of work and employment in mass customised industries of recent creation. It argues that the use of IT systems certainly affects workers' skills but in a way that is still largely embedded in how social relations take place inside organisations. It also argues that a drive towards a flexible labour market as a response to the challenges of a more competitive environment has eroded employment conditions for most call centre workers. However, instead of broadening deskilling and employment precariousness, work in the new economy is characterised by the reinforcement of polarising employment conditions, with many practices of the old economy still present in the new.