Friday, September 15, 2006

PeopleSupport expands operation in provinces

An executive of a business process outsourcing (BPO) provider is optimistic of the bullish industry in the country and is now expanding operation in the provinces to sustain its increasing manpower requirements.

PeopleSupport Philippines president and vice president for Global Operations Bong Borja in a press conference after the launching and opening of its Davao office at Luisa Avenue Square in Jacinto Extension said there is rapid growth in the industry.

The five-year old industry in the Philippines already has employed 179,000 call center agents or about 200,000 workers involved in the entire BPO industry, he said. Borja is also the chairman of Business Processing Association of the Philippines.

The BPO industry, he said has several services and this includes the call center, back office, medical transcription, legal transcription, animation, software development and engineering design.

And by 2010, about half a million will be employed in different services of the industry.

As a leading BPO provider PeopleSupport, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSPT) offers customer management, transcription captioning, accounts receivable management and other related services.

The PeopleSupport, he said, has put in few million US dollars as investments for its recruitment and training center in Davao City.
"Our moving in to the south speaks strongly of our firm intention in Davao City," he said.

He said they decided to set up permanent recruitment center here to also study the flow of applicants.

He said there are a lot of good schools in Davao and the neighboring provinces where there are a lot of potentials.

Out of the weekly processing of application and interviews of 3,000 to 4,000 about 300 are hired with 70 to 80 slots for those recruited in Davao.

The successful applicants from Davao will be assigned to the Company's facilities in either Cebu or Manila with relocation packages made available to help in the smooth transition of the young executives.

Generally Borja said hiring rate of these type of workers range from P10,000 to P16,000 plus other benefits.

He also said that the training center will be for their recruits although he said that they might expand in the future by opening a language school.

Looking at the current absorption rate of those who applied at ten percent, Borja said there has been an improvement saying that it started as low as one percent then move up to five and has regularly been improving.

He said the government support has slowly paying off where the private sector had a continuing partnership with the Commission of High Education in improving on its language curriculum.

One reason that was cited why only a ten percent absorption rate of applicants was the lack of proficiency in the English language even as Borja said that PeopleSupport is willing to help enhance their skills. (PIA)

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