BPO firms cited for creating more jobs

MANILA, Philippines—Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo, chair of the House committee on higher and technical education, has cited the country’s 45 largest business process outsourcing (BPO) providers and the back offices of global firms for driving the creation of new high-paying jobs.

“These leading players in the BPO and information technology … sector are now among the nation’s biggest employers,” said Romulo. “They have helped ease joblessness among fresh college graduates and young professionals in a big way.”

Romulo also said he is counting on the 45 firms to spearhead the generation of more than 248,000 new jobs in the sector over the next two years.

The BPO companies’ combined revenues reached P250 billion ($5.9 billion) in 2013.

Romulo is author of the Data Privacy Act of 2012, which has encouraged transnational firms to either establish new back offices in Manila, or to transfer their noncore, business support activities to independent BPO firms operating here.

The BPO and IT-enabled services industry now directly employs 1.052 million Filipinos.

The industry is projected to yield up to $27 billion in annual revenues and engage over 1.3 million Filipinos workers by 2016, according to the IT and Business Processing Association of the Philippines, which has 229 member firms.