Solon allays fears of US getting back BPOs with Obama win

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MANILA, Philippines — Does the Philippines need to worry about the possibility of outsourced jobs being sent back to the US?

A lawmaker on Friday allayed such fears, saying the country has nothing to fear despite the hint recently made by Ambassador Harry Thomas of President Barack Obama’s possible move to bring back outsourced jobs back to their home turf.

“The country should not fear such statements as it refers to jobs that can be realistically brought back to the US,” said Marikina City Representative Miro Quimbo.

The legislator pointed out how “businesses outsourced by the US to the Philippines feeds to jobs that cannot be done anymore by a highly industrialized country like the US. The jobs outsourced to us do not take away jobs from US shores.”

Quimbo added that outsourced jobs in the country even allowed the US “to free itself of less skilled and low paying jobs so that it can invest its job generation investments on higher end jobs.”

“Outsourcing in the Philippines is an enabler, a creator of jobs in the US. It’s not a destroyer,” he said.

Pasig City Representative Roman Romulo even recently voiced optimism that the reelected US President’s “Obamacare” would bring new jobs to the Philippines.

The BPO industry in the country consists among others of contact center services; back offices; medical, legal and other data transcription; animation; software development; engineering design; and digital content.

But in the event that outsourced work are sent back to the US, Aurora Representative Juan Edgardo Angara said that what the country should improve on were its education and skills training sector.

“We here in the Philippines should ensure (that) we remain competitive in terms of labor costs and productivity. Reforms in the education and skills training sector would help in the long term,” he said.

Romulo in a recent statement said that outsourcing firms were projected to produce $27 billion in revenues and directly engage some 1.3 million Filipino workers by 2016.

Meanwhile, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines said that the BPO industry could generate as much as $13 billion in revenues on a labor force of 764,000.