Contact center sector sees 8% growth to 2022

From now to 2022, expect contact centers in the Philippines to lose a little over 40,000 jobs—but gain around 400,000 more.

According to the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), the country will see a 29-percent decrease in the number of people in low-skill contact center jobs (simple entry-level, process-driven tasks that require little abstract thinking or autonomy)—a loss of around 43,000 jobs.

Despite this, the industry will still see the addition of around 73,000 jobs a year until 2022 as workers move to more mid- and high-skilled tasks, said Jojo Uligan, CCAP president.

“We predict about 8-percent annual growth until 2022. That takes our revenues from $12.8 billion last year to $20.4 billion in 2022,” he added. “We’re focused on upgrading our workers. So those with jobs which are defined as simple, it doesn’t mean we’re going to take them out. We’re going to train them so they can start accepting more complex types of work.”

The industry will discuss these trends during the upcoming conference called Contact Islands, which is set to be held on Oct. 11-12, in Shangri-La’s Boracay Resort and Spa.

With the theme, “The Future of Customer Experience,” Contact Islands will tackle the impact of new digital technologies—artificial intelligence, robotics—on the contact center industry, and how these will affect jobs in the country.

“[These technologies have] significant implications on the Philippines’ human capital development, the country’s educational system which is producing our talent, and on companies investing in these new digital technologies,” said  CCAP chair Benedict Hernandez. “All of those are relevant to us and that’s how we’re maneuvering our companies and our industry to continue to be relevant while being digitally disrupted.”

Hernandez also emphasized the importance of investing in education in order for the country to produce more “upskilled” contact center workers.

On its part, the CCAP has been working with universities and government agencies in order to introduce students to skills specifically needed by the contact center industry.

“We have been working with schools together with the Commission on Higher Education, with the Department of Education, to look at the relevant skills that the industry needs, and how we can build those skills in the curriculum itself,” said Hernandez.