BPO industry growing fast, gov’t focuses on manpower

By Lito Dar

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet-- The Philippines is now number one in the world as far as the call center industry is concerned, and the country’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) is now gaining up with India in a fast pace, for the top spot.

Department of Budget and Management Sec. Florencio ‘Butch’ Abad bared this during his visit here last week to meet with the presidents of state universities and colleges of Cordillera and Region I here at Benguet State University.

“Gaining the top spot in the BPO industry is highly achievable for the country but we must firstly assure that we can also cope with the manpower demand of such fast growing local industry,” Abad said.

According to Abad, BPO as well as electronics/semiconductor, tourism, infrastructure, and agriculture, fisheries and forestry are top five sectors the Aquino administration is now focusing on to boost the country’s competitiveness in investments and economic development.

He said the country’s BPO industry is increasing by about 20 percent yearly which could still improve by 25 percent in the succeeding years and that the industry projects continuous investment in the country even beyond the term of President Aquino.

Abad added in consultation with BPO companies, there is also a concern that the country’s supply of manpower for the industry is also already reaching its plateau and the quality of our graduates for the said industry is deteriorating, which could result in BPO companies looking outside of the country for investment.

“Presently, the BPO industries offer about 65,000 job opportunities and I just came from Bacolod, wherein there is a need for about 3,500 Call center agents, but the city can only supply about 1,250,” Abad said.

For the government’s part, Abad added they are now investing heavily on basic education including pre-school, to put up a better educational foundation for Filipino children and strengthening of technical-vocational skills of the students in basic education, as well as the government’s program for tech-voc education and training.

According to Abad, the government has just put up P1.2 billion investment for tech-voc education and training and P500 million of the said investment were initially invested for the training of 72,000 possible BPO workers or near-hires, in which the BPO industry also committed to hire 58,000 of these trainees, as well as to recruit and train faculty members from the country’s SUC, that will then serve as trainers for such purpose.

Abad also called on SUCs to partner with them for such objective, as he also assured that the government, as well as the BPO industry, is willing to invest on them for such purpose.

“The ultimate objective here is to provide our graduates and even those in school, opportunity for employment and livelihood,” he said.

“That is what we really want to achieve. So it is just logical that the government will invest in areas it foresees that will be making huge investment for the country and its people, because that is the requirement of the market, abroad and domestic, which is in line with the government’s objective of alleviating poverty and boosting the country’s economy.”