Government to fund training of BPO workers

MANILA, Philippines—The government will team up with the private sector to train business process outsourcing (BPO) workers as well as beef up the ranks of trainers, to help drive the industry toward a full-year revenue of $20 billion by 2016.

Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said Tuesday that Malacañang would provide funding for human capital enhancement programs, which would need a combined P500 million a year.

Abad said the government would work with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) to support the outsourcing industry’s target of creating 3.15 million jobs and $6 billion (P255 billion) in tax revenue by 2016.

Already, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) is planning to improve and expand its “Training-for-Work” scholarship program. Tesda’s goal is to train 58,000 scholars in 2011 and 2012, 37,000 of whom will be guaranteed jobs.

Also, Tesda is pushing for a faculty trainer development program to further expand the base of trained scholars.

Citing BPAP data, Abad said the program would require annual investments amounting to P350 million and P150 million, respectively.

According to the budget chief, the Aquino administration is prepared to spend on human resources, and has in fact proposed a 21-percent increase in the budget for the economic services sector to P438.9 billion in 2012 from P361.9 billion this year.