BAGUIO CITY ? What job gives young Filipinos a high salary for basic skills?

Most people will say migrant work, but a recent study indicates that this is also the character of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the summer capital.

In fact, the nature of local BPO firms makes this industry a good training ground for future overseas Filipino workers, who hone their English proficiency in call centers before moving abroad after two years of work, said Mitch Hendricks, a research affiliate of the Cordillera Studies Center at the University of the Philippines Baguio.

Hendricks presented his initial findings on the emergence of offshore services in Baguio for a graduate paper on human geography in developing countries at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

UP social science professors, who analyzed Hendricks? study, said they were drawn to the paradox of BPOs, whose first line of workers were highly trained fresh graduates who might be overqualified for call center or transcription agent work.

The industry has no real labor problems because it offers relatively high pay, and is assured of new recruits for each employee that leaves the firm, Hendricks said, to illustrate this ?paradox.?

Hendricks said he set out to understand what drew BPO firms to the city and ended up tracking down the behavior and competency of its work force.

He said this was important because the Philippines remained ?a country of migrants.?

Hendricks said he assumed that BPOs help capture ? and bind to the city ? the local skilled labor, who would otherwise look for overseas employment.

But his study suggests that BPOs keep these workers for too short a time to alter the local job behavior.

Baguio has been billed by the government as a sunshine state for BPOs, even if Metro Manila still hosts 80 percent of offshore services.

During a May 14 economic briefing sponsored by the Bank of Commerce, economists of the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) said the ?cost-saving advantage of outsourcing? meant that BPOs remain ?key drivers of growth? for countries confronting the global recession.

For the Philippines in particular, BPOs are looking at an improved environment because of the ?availability and drop in the cost of telecommunications,? said economist Ramon Quesada.

Although a fledgling Filipino trade by most standards, the BPO industry posted profits that grew from $4.9 billion in 2007 to a projected $7.9 billion by yearend, Quesada said.

There are between 25 and 30 licensed and unlicensed BPO firms operating in Baguio, Hendricks said, which were served by over 4,500 employees.

Of the city?s potential labor force of 185,000 this year, BPO firms account for 2.7 percent of that total job pool, he said.

Hendricks said the ?push factors? drawing firms to Baguio are highlighted by the weather, which reduces air-conditioning expenses required for technology-led businesses, and the relatively low cost of living here.

The presence of seven major universities in Baguio also assures BPO firms of fresh pool of English-proficient talents, owing to the city?s roots as an American-built community in 1909, he said.