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By Rhick Lars Vladimer Albay
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Thursday, August 3, 2017
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MANILA – The shift to automation can displace 40,000 low-skilled workers in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, but will open up job opportunities for nearly 700,000 higher-skilled counterparts, an industry official said Tuesday.
Low-skilled workers include receptionists and clerks. Job demand will shift to medium and high-skilled jobs that offer higher compensation, said Alex Tined, program director of the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines.
“We need to teach them the new jobs. The challenge now is to make sure that we have people to do the mid and high skill jobs,” Tined said.
Tined said some 388,000 jobs would be added to the middle level and another 309,000 to the high skill level, bringing the industry workforce to 1.8 million by 2022 from the current 1.14 million.
The BPO industry is a key job generator and source of dollar earnings that help strengthen the peso.
Tined said the Philippines had fallen to third place among the world’s top BPO destinations, as India and China lure companies with more advanced technologies.
China is a relative newcomer to the race, previously dominated by India and the Philippines.
ILOILO PROSPECTS
Iloilo City is one of the premier BPO hubs in the country – but after claiming the 90th spot in 2016, it has lost its position in the Tholons Top 100 “super cities” for outsourcing this year.
According to local government officials and stakeholders in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, Iloilo’s snub from the firm’s international competitiveness rankings is due to “a lack of innovation.”
“With regards to Tholons, I had a meeting with sir Rik Amores [Visayas Cluster 1 director] of DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) and I asked him what happened,” explained Ritchel Gavan, head of the Local Economic and Investment Promotion Office (LEIPO).
“I asked him sir what could have been the reason why Iloilo City is no longer in the list. [Amores said it could be] because of the introduction of new parameters for the latest Tholons [study], which now includes the growth of a startup community, which is actually just in time because we are launching ‘Ilovation’,” she added.
The portmanteau of Iloilo and innovation, Ilovation 2017 is an upcoming two-day activity that seeks to bring together Ilonggo tech experts, techpreneurs, and those involved in startup ventures in bolstering the city as the “next Silicon Valley” and an emerging Information Technology Financial hub – as well as hopefully reintroducing Iloilo City into the Tholens Top 100.
According to a report by the Philippine Information Agency Region 6, 47 BPO companies are currently operating in Iloilo City, employing some 21,500 fulltime employees.
PH BPO IN PERIL?
In 2016, nine major Philippine cities were included in the list – with Manila ranking the highest at 2nd place worldwide, along with Cebu City (7th), Davao City (66th), Sta. Rosa, Laguna (81st), Bacolod (85th), Dumaguete City (93rd), Baguio City (94th), and Metro Clark (97th).
Dumaguete City, Baguio City, and Metro Clark join Iloilo in falling out of the Top 100. Manila also fell a few rungs in the ladder – from 2nd to 4th place. The remaining Phillipine hubs also dropped in the 2017 standings: Cebu City (12th), Davao City (85th), Bacolod City (97th) and Sta. Rosa, Laguna (100th).
Despite the slumps, Tholons still cites the Philippines as among the “digital nation” leaders.
“The Philippines has been the undisputed leader in customer service [and] BPOs, [being] home to several major multinational corporations,” the report reads. “The city of Manila has become the focus of operations for various industries and has long challenged Bangalore, Mumbai and taken the lead in business process management.”
Tholons is a leading full-service strategic advisory firm for global outsourcing and investments. In this year’s report, they considered innovation, workforce and skills, infrastructure and cost, risk and quality of life, and business catalysts as metrics for the research. (with a report from ABS-CBN News/PN)
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