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Second only to Bangalore of India, call center business in the Philippines is booming and has provided employment opportunities to lots of Filipinos,

Call center business is just a parcel of the business process outsourcing industry, which employs 340,000 people and have contributed more than 3% of the country’s GDP. Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), the industry organization, is active in trying to keep the boom going. They are aiming to hit US$13-billion in revenues by the end of 2010. The year 2007 saw a growth of revenue to US$5-billion from US$1.5-billion in 2004. BPAP is also aiming to increase the country’s share of the global market from 5% to 10%. Aside from India and the Philippines, other countries that are trying to tap into the rapidly-growing offshore market are China, Hungary, Poland, Brazil and Mexico.

The widespread use of the English language in the Philippines makes it an ideal location for call center business. Paul Schmidt, partner and managing director at TPI, a global outsourcing advisory firm based in Texas said, “The Philippines is a strong No. 2 and is very competitive with India” adding that “The quality of their voice services is considered very high because of their English proficiency, particularly for North America, which they have leveraged into supporting the back-end processes as well”

Another distinct advantage of the Philippines over India is that the local accent is seen as more palatable by some Western customers. John Langford, executive vice-president of ICT Group, a Pennsylvania-based global outsourcing company said “We decided to start our operations in the Philippines rather than India, because the dialect here is softer” “A lot of our clients in the U.S. and also the U.K. and Australia find the Indian accent very harsh. The Filipino accent is more neutral. A lot of time, our agents are mistaken for Hispanic.”

Another factor of the booming business is that labor cost in the Philippines is low. Total labor costs for an employee here are around US$5,000 to US$6,000 a year, compared with US$25,000 to $30,000 in North America.

This booming industry created more income opportunities for others as well. 24-hour shops and restaurants have popped up to cater to the young but well-paid workers. And the industry gave most Filipinos reasons to stay in the country instead of going abroad to be homecare workers, nannies, nurses and seafarers.
“One of my goals is to give Filipinos job opportunities here in our own country,” says Danilo Reyes, president of SITEL’s operations in the Philippines. “Because of the offshoring industry, a lot of would-be migrants have stayed behind because they have a stable, good paying job here that they can be proud of.”