Philippine Call Center Industry Enjoys The Strong Government Support

With the country’s rising unemployment and the ever-growing number of Filipino professionals leaving the country to work somewhere else, the success of local BPO providers have given a significant boost to the country’s economy.

Much of the growth of the PH contact center industry is due to the country’s large resource of English-speaking individuals and low labor costs.

From only 10 outsourcing companies in the Philippines in 2001, there are now more than 100 call centers in the country. Call center outsourcing operators comprise of 80 percent of business process outsourcing players in the country.

Strong Growth and Revenue

About 200,000 Filipinos, mostly young professionals in their 20s, are working in call centers across the country. In 2005, the BPO sector generated revenues amounting to US$2.3 billion, an increase of approximately US$1 billion from the preceding year and industry analysts are projecting another US$1 billion increase in sales for 2006.

The government predicts that offshore call center outsourcing operators in the Philippines as a whole will be generating 2 million jobs for Filipinos by 2010, to employ about 2 percent of the entire Filipino population.

This confident outlook lies in the strong advantage of offshoring in terms of workforce. Particularly, the workforce’s hospitable and caring nature is one of the country’s competitive advantages making them ideal for this type of work.

As the growing call center industry encounter an increase in demand, mainly from the United States market, offshore firms are aggressively recruiting competent college-educated individuals to fill in the increasing number of call center seat requirements in. Fortunately, the country has plenty of English-speaking and IT-skilled individuals that are qualified to take on the call center jobs.

Majority of Filipinos are fluent in English primarily because the country had been a colony of the United States for several decades. Filipinos are very familiar with American culture and language, which makes it easy to train Filipino agents.

To strengthen this advantage in English language skills and further make offshoring firms more competitive, the government is promoting English language proficiency and its benefits towards securing good careers. The chief language of instruction in Filipino schools is English. Business groups besides are also joining in the effort of encouraging the use of English language.

Additionally, the Philippine government is taking steps to further improve English literacy in the workforce, through 100-hour English training courses.

Manila has also seen an increasing number of private schools that have opened to offer English training and call center courses to equip students with the necessary English communication skills and prepare them for employment. Students receive training to familiarize them with American accent, idioms and slang.

In addition to efforts in reinforcing the English skills of the Filipino workforce, the government supports the sector in other ways such as the provision of tax incentives and other concessions to offshore call center outsourcing operators in the Philippines.

The development of Philippine offshore call center outsourcing operators in cities outside of Manila is also part of the plan to boost the call center industry and the industry as a whole. Such technological advancements have already resulted in the establishment of offshore call center outsourcing operators in the key cities of Cebu, Davao and Bacolod in the southern part of the country as well as in the north in the areas of Baguio and Laguna.

The priority attention that the Philippine government gives the industry comes from the recognition that this industry, which has already proven to be one of the largest sources of revenue for the country in recent years, is one of the critical business areas that will drive valuable and steady growth to the country in the years ahead.

To learn more about our industry-specific BPO capabilities please contact us by calling +1-310-844-7805 or by filling out our inquiry form. We look forward to hearing from you.