The month of August saw an all-time high for employment in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector in the Philippines, hitting over one million employees.
Growth in employment is being primarily driven by the expansion plans of a number of companies, such as Accenture and Convergys.
Over the past decade, the Philippines’ BPO industry has seen tremendous growth – revenues and employment have expanded tenfold since 2004.
The industry sees an average yearly growth rate of 20 percent.
The country’s success has had a profound impact on other BPO centers, such as India, who have seen their share of the industry decline. In 2013, it was reported by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) that India had lost over 50 percent of its BPO industry to foreign competitors.
The Philippine government has strongly supported the BPO industry. The government led Philippine Development Plan, a program lasting from 2011 to 2016, has singled out BPO as a high-potential and priority development area for investment.
Additionally, the government is running a number of training programs, such as the Training for Work Scholarship Program, in order to create a competitive workforce.
Additionally, investors into the BPO industry are eligible for a number of incentives, such as tax holidays, simplified import and export procedures, tax exemptions on imported capital equipment, and the freedom to employ foreign nationals.
Filipino employees are particularly attractive to BPO employers – they tend to be very fluent in Western-accented English. While the BPO industry employees just two percent of the country’s workforce, the industry has had a positive effect on a number of other business areas, such as the retail, real estate, and telecom industries.
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