BPO firms to create 500,000 jobs

MANILA, Philippines - Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies operating in the country are expected to generate at least 500,000 new jobs between 2013 and 2016, Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo said yesterday.

“Of the more than 800 BPO players, we see the heavyweights hiring most aggressively over the next three years. Their economies of scale will enable them to quickly draw in more businesses that will necessitate the recruitment of thousands of additional staff,” the lawmaker said.

“The larger BPO firms have cost advantages. Owing to their size, they can easily offer both existing and new clients all kinds of back office and business support services at highly competitive prices,” he added.

Romulo noted that the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) expects the industry to earn up to $27 billion in annual revenues, and directly employs some 1.3 million Filipinos by 2016.

“The forecast implies the creation of up to 536,000 new jobs on top of the current 800,000 and the doubling of annual revenues over the next three years,” he said.

Accenture, Convergys and TeleTech are the country’s largest BPO entities in terms of gross revenues and full-time staff.

With over 25,000 employees in 13 locations, Accenture posted P22.256 billion in revenues in 2011, up by 27.7 percent from 2010.

On the other hand, Convergys and TeleTech posted P14.400 billion (21 percent up) and P11.250 billion (19.5 percent up) in revenues, respectively.

Convergys has 30,000 personnel in its 19 sites nationwide, while TeleTech has around 20,000 workers in its 14 branches.

The other leading BPO companies and their 2011 revenues include JPMorgan Chase Bank-Philippine Global Service Center (P9.9 billion), Stream International Global Services (P6.8 billion), Sitel Philippines Corp. (P6.5 billion), Telephilippines Inc. (P5.6 billion), Sutherland Global Services (P6.4 billion), Deutsche Knowledge Services (P6.4 billion), Sykes Asia Inc. (P5.8 billion), Aegis PeopleSupport Inc. (P5.4 billion), Telus International (P5.4 billion), and IBM Daksh Business Process Services (P5.1 billion).

Romulo is one of the authors of the new Data Privacy Act expected to help entice global corporations to either establish new in-house back offices in Manila, or transfer their non-core, business support activities to independent BPO firms operating here.

The new law mandates all entities, including BPO firms, to protect the confidentiality of clients’ information stored in the firms’ information technology (IT) systems, in compliance with international privacy standards.

The country’s labor-intensive BPO and IT-enabled service industry includes call center services; back office support operations; medical, legal and other data transcription, and animation, software development, engineering design, and digital content.