Global recession means good business for RP BPOs
Even as companies abroad continue to lay off workers and even close shop, the country’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is faring well.
“With rescission comes the pressure on companies to reduce the cost, and they look for opportunities to outsource business that they are doing in high cost countries like the US, Australia, UK, Canada, New Zealand and move those jobs to the Philippines,” TeleTech Country Head Maulik Parekh told reporters yesterday after the inauguration of the TeleTech Iloilo Delivery Center at SM City Iloilo, as he announced that they will be hiring additional 2,000 call center agents this year.
With 23,000 employees in the Philippines, TeleTech is among the biggest BPO companies in the country. It hopes to reach the 25,000 mark by the end of the year.
With declining sales caused by the global financial crisis, companies abroad continue to lay off workers to cut costs.
This, Parekh said, is a good sign for workers fluent in the English language.
In a bid to cut costs, foreign companies are looking at foreign shores for cheap labor.
Outsourcing business processes to developing countries means “massive cost benefits for equal or not better quality of work,” Parekh explained.
But in a way, he added, the global economic downturn has affected the BPO industry.
Although the industry will continue to expand, he said, it will not be as fast as the rate in the past three years.
At the present, the country’s eight-year-old BPO industry employs about 400,000.
These comes in the wake of Arroyo’s statement that there are plenty of jobs available for Filipino workers here and abroad in spite of the global financial crisis.
Mrs. Arroyo, who convened an overseas employment forum Monday at Malacañang, said the challenge is in matching the available jobs to the skills of the workers.
Labor Secretary Marianito Roque admitted that a lot of the job seekers do not have the skills necessary for a many of the jobs available overseas.