350 jobs up for grabs as JTI picks PH as service hub

Cigarette giant Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has chosen to put up its regional business service hub in the Philippines.

In a statement on Saturday, the Geneva-based JTI said it would hire 350 people over the next three years for its Manila global business service (GBS) center, but did not say the investment amount.

The Philippine site will serve JTI’s Asia-Pacific markets, and will be the third of its kind following two GBS centers established in Warsaw, Poland, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

“A management team to run the JTI GBS center hea­ded by a general manager is already in place. The office is slowly taking place in an office building in McKinley [Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City]. Hiring is in full swing,” JTI said.

“The GBS center will provide sophisticated solutions, consulting and analytics to sa­tisfy complex operational challenges in the areas of finance, marketing and sales, people and culture, procurement, global supply chain and information technology. The business center is expected to increase the opera­tional efficiency of all JTI markets in the Asia-Pacific region by streamlining activities, harmonizing business processes and sharing best-practices not only in the region but across all 130 countries the company operates in,” JTI added.

“The establishment of the Manila GBS center is proof of the company’s confidence in the Philippine market and evidence of its continuing commitment to create jobs in support of national development. We are pleased to add the GBS center to our employment offerings in the Philippines, further underpinning our commitment to helping the government in creating job opportunities in the country,” JTI Philippines president John Freda said.

“With its hardworking, talen­ted and English-proficient workforce coupled with a robust business process outsour­cing industry, Manila is perfectly suited to take on this very important role,” Akhtar Hannan, general manager of JTI’s Manila GBS center, said.

JTI said it hopes that the Manila facility could “help soften the recessionary impact of the ongoing COVID-19 (new coronavirus disease) pande­mic, which will surely result in loss of thousands of jobs.”

The Manila GBS center will jack up JTI’s workforce in the Philippines to 5,000, including those working at its Batangas factory.

JTI Philippines sells the ciga­rette brands Camel, Marvels, Mevius, Mighty and Winston. INQ