We provide the largest number of jobs announcements in the development fields....

Call centers see deluge of "knowledge workers"
Date: 5/18/2004 3:25:00 PM
Source: The Manila Times
By: Erwin P. Nantez, Senior Researcher

When Alvin Toffler coined the word "cognitariat"or "knowledge worker"in his book Power Shift, no one ever realized that the term would soon be used more commonly with the emergence of the contact center industry in the Philippines. The country has so far provided the suitable business environment for the industry.

With 380,000 college graduates entering the workforce annually, contact centers seem to be the best market to absorb the large pool of knowledge workers. Beefed up by an estimated skilled labor force of 29 million, the world"s third largest English-speaking country is also endowed with a literacy rate of 94 percent. The contact center industry does not show any signs of slowing down in the Philippines. With new players entering the industry and the current frontrunners expanding at a blistering pace, the centers could be likened to tiger clubs of the local business scene. Many of the large players are the country"s most profitable companies. Sixty three contact centers with 25,000 seats made $200 million last year. More firms are set to start their call center operations while those that are already in the country are currently expanding their facilities to cope with the rising service demand.

Human Capital Since the industry offers higher salaries than most jobs, many fresh graduates are trooping to companies, which are too eager to hire them. For a contact center, the access to readily available higher educated manpower is crucial to their success. Clients have requirements that need to be filled almost immediately. Hence, a call center with a highly developed recruitment and training arm is one that will have an edge over its competitors. “It is a well documented fact that our biggest advantage over our neighbors is the quality of our human capital.

Filipinos have a great work ethic, are very well educated and possess great English communication skills,"said Rainiero Borja, chair of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP). Borja, who is president of a contact center firm called PeopleSupport, is not worried about the influx of contact center companies. “I think it"s good for the country and good for Filipinos. If this industry did not exist, imagine what the 30,000 plus folks now employ would be doing "a significant number would surely be unemployed."But Borja sees the need to be competitive.

"When somebody is nipping at your heels, you need to run faster," he said. While some industry analysts fear that the labor market for call center agents may eventually reach its saturation point, Borja does not share the view that this is happening right now. "I don"t foresee the labor pool for contact centers to dry up.

The country still generates 385,000 college graduates annually, and there"s not much white-collar jobs going around in significant numbers apart from our industry. We"ve also put in place the measures needed to beef up the quality of the graduates, like changes in the medium of instruction to English, and the contact center courses now being offered in universities."Among the training centers presently in place are the Call Center Academy and the Avaya Customer Contact Training Center (ACCTC) located at the Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT) in Manila. The pairing of a global provider of customer relationship management (CRM) equipment and an educational facility reflects the serious intent of many companies to develop the country"s potential for call center work.

Many other colleges and universities are preparing elective courses specifically for the transmission of call center skills. Together with the government sponsored training programs from agencies like Technical Skills Development Authority (Tesda), the training infrastructure for prospective call center agents is being speedily put up to for prospective call center agents is being speedily out up to make our country"s labor force more responsive to the industry.

Uphill Climb As call center jobs increase, meeting quality work standards becomes an uphill climb. A recent study made by consultancy firm Gartner showed that the acceptance rate for call centers agents is falling from five percent to three percent. This is a very small portion out of the estimated three million applicants, Female agents comprise 72 percent of the workforce while males constitute 28 percent.

Around a thousand personnel are hired every week. Another issue faced by companies and prospective applicants is attrition, the steady thinning of the ranks of trained call center agents due to various performance issues.

Although the Board of Investments described the Philippines as having a low attrition rate, Borja said the average period a contact center agent stays employed in his company dropped from one year to six months.

"A significant number of people who leave the company is due to involuntary attrition "that means it is the company letting them go because they are not cutting it. This could be due to schedule adherence or performance issues. Most voluntary attrition on the other hand is attributable to the preference of folks to do day-time regular hours work,"Borja said as he narrated his experience with PeopleSupport.

Borja stressed out that the issue is not so much whether a company can hire quality staff but whether massive numbers can be recruited within a specifies timeframe. "This is the reason why we are spreading our geographic presence so we can take advantage of the fresh talent pool that other locations offer. This is only symptomatic of the high and fast growth companies like ours."These companies have capacities in the 1,500-seat range, with Etelcare, PeopleSupport and Convergys in the 2,000-seat range. They offer a wide array of inbound and outbound services and have multiple locations to house their agents. Their roster of clients is composed mostly of American and other multinational companies. Integration into a single dedicated facility is part of the general strategy of firms. Their presence in many different parts of the metropolis actually serves to attract prospective agents that live within the facility. Makati and Eastwood in Libis are the main concentrations of contact center operations, while the industrial park facilities in Alabang is a close second.

Areas of expansion Contact centers have been sprouting not only in Metro Manila but in other metropolitan centers in the Philippines as well. The Clark Special Economic Zone and Cebu are prime targets for call center expansion. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) recorded some P853.96 million investments and at least 3,802 workers in the call center industry in February 2004. Convergys topped the list of investors with P257.16 million investments. It employs an average of 1,293 workers yearly. The second largest investor, Ambergis Solutions Philippines Inc., poured in P233.5 million and gave jobs to 650 Filipinos annually. Investments of Sitel Customer Care Philippines Inc. amounted to P196 million. It absorbed 600 workers. Companies whose investments are below P100 million include PeopleSupport and Pacifichub with P91.29 million and P76.01 million, respectively.

Aside from Convergys, four other US-based call centers "Teleperformance USA, Teletech, InfoNXX and Epixtar "are reported to expanding in the former Clark airbase in Pampanga. Other contact centers that are expected to commence operations in Cebu are Convergys, Sykes Asia, Western WATS, Teradyne, Page Computers, Bigfoot Global Solutions Inc., and 88th Floor.

Outlook When asked about the prospects of the call center industry in the near future, Borja projected growth from 70 percent to 100 percent this year. He expects his own company to double its size by end-2004. Borja"s forecast is supported by the projection of the Philippines Call Center Industry Benchmark Study (PCCIBS), which reported 100 percent expansion to 40,000 seats this year from 20,000 seats in 2003. Although the Philippines is having difficulties competing in the Indian-dominated information technology service (ITS) market, the country may show its comparative advantage in the information technology-enabled service (ITES) area where business process outsourcing (BPO) comprises a significant part. Experts believe that ITES will grow more than 20 percent and the ITS at less than 10 percent. It has also been projected that the demand for the former will outplace that of the latter within four years.

By 2008, the call center industry in the Philippines shall have rake $1.67 billion in revenues. Changes in the regulatory climate in the United States, however, may also trigger some changes in the way call centers in the Philippines do business with American clients, The Call Center Consumer"s Right to Know Act, sponsored by presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, will require call center agents to disclose their location at the start of the call. If the bill is enacted into law, Filipino call centers may have to deal with prejudice from some Americans. Others see the legislative measure as a source of trust problems and longer average handling time (AHT), which no agent wants. The call center industry, however, shows its dynamism through companies, which can innovate and adapt to a large number of clients and their requirements. It is this drive that will hopefully hurdle the challenges posed by any regulatory move. WITH REPORTS FROM DARWIN G. AMOJELAR

Philippines could corner as many as 450,000 call center jobs from the offshoring operations of large United States corporations over the next five years
Media Release
Feb. 19, 2006 - INDIADAILY.COM

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said the Philippines could corner as many as 450,000 call center jobs from the offshoring operations of large United States corporations over the next five years.

US firms are under enormous pressure to cut costs and boost shareholder returns and may eventually decide to offshore or outsource up to 1.5 million US-based call center seats that are now being staffed by Americans, said TUCP general secretary Ernesto Herrera.

Our projection is that US firms will find ways to offshore to low-wage English-speaking countries about 50 percent, or 1.5 million, of all call center seats now based in the US, Herrera, a former senator, said.

He said that with the Westernized culture of college-educated Filipinos, we should get 30 percent of the seats. The US has at present more than three million call center seats, most of them in-house, supporting the operations of large companies that routinely deal with millions of customers.

More call center jobs in 2006

From: DAILY STAR

The call center industry in the Philippines is seen to generate more jobs for the Filipino workers this year, the Department of Labor and Employment said in a press release.

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said that locally, the highest number of jobs recorded are in the call center industry, adding that at the start of 2006, the DOLE has received a request for about 7,500 people to work in call center.

Bureau of Investments estimates indicate that about 112,000 Filipinos are now working in call centers in the country which brought in more than $1 billion in revenues in 2005, the press release said.

The BOI said there is a sharp increase in figures compared to 2000 when call centers employed just 2,400 people and earned only $24 million.

By 2010, the country aims to capture about five percent of the global business process outsourcing seen to reach as much as $10 billion, DOLE said in a press release.

Sto. Tomas, however, said there have been difficulties in filling up call center seats because the number of English language proficient workers in the country is decreasing.

Out of every 100 applicants, she said, only about five to 10 people are accepted, indicating an acceptance rate of only five to 10 percent, the press release said.

To address the problem and sustain the competitiveness of the country's call center industry, Sto. Tomas said that the DOLE and its attached agency, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, will work together with the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education.

The objective of the inter-agency meeting, she said, is to come up with a plan of action that would enable more Filipino workers to meet the call centers' urgent need for language proficient staff, the press release added.*