BPO workforce seen hitting 1M-2M in 2010

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BPO workforce seen hitting 1M-2M in 2010
Posted: 2:50 AM | Jun. 09, 2006

Inquirer

THE business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is expected to have between one and two million employees in 2010, including 500,000 in call centers, officials of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines said Thursday.

More processes are being outsourced, resulting in a surge in demand for workers, said CCAP director Rainerio Borja, president of PeopleSupport Philippines Inc.

The demand is growing so fast that the industry is facing a labor shortage, association officials said.

They said that out of the country's 400,000 college graduates every year, only 25 percent are deemed "immediately employable" in the BPO and information technology-enabled services sectors.

"Labor shortage is a glaring issue facing us. But this is something we hope we can address," said CCAP director Raffy David, director for marketing and quality at Pilipinas Teleserv.

When asked if the labor shortage would mean having to sacrifice quality to meet the demand, David said BPO companies take up projects only taken if they know that the requirements could be fulfilled with the quality for which the country was become known.

In Cebu City, PeopleSupport Philippines has increased its seats from the original 300 when it started to 1,600 and plans to expand to 2,000 seats within the year, said Lance Rosenzweig, chairman and chief executive of the US-based PeopleSupport Inc.

Rosenzweig, in Cebu City for the inauguration of the company's second site, said: "We're hiring this year an average 50 new employees every week. We don't see that slowing down."

"I think over the next few years, we can continue to grow our operations here very significantly," he said. "The reason is that the teams are performing so well that the clients are very, very happy with their performance and they're encouraging us to continue to grow here."

Rosenzweig said PeopleSupport was partnering with universities in developing people. "We're seeing a very large pool of workers," he said.< With INQ7.net