Industry Eyes Provinces to Host Half of IT-BPM Jobs in PHL

The country’s information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry targets provinces to host 50 percent of the sector’s jobs in the coming years.

Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) President Benedict Hernandez, at the sidelines of a press conference Wednesday, said it would be a good target to bring half of IT-BPM jobs outside Metro Manila to spur economic growth, particularly in rural areas.

This target will be an increase from the 30 percent current share of areas outside Metro Manila in number of IT-BPM workforce.

Hernandez said that about 300,000 people were employed by the industry in cities outside the National Capital Region (NCR).

The workforce population in provinces has tripled in 10 years in which number of jobs outside NCR was only at more than 90,000.

“Our contribution and aspiration is very much aligned with government and hence there’s opportunity for dialogue on how we can contribute to the same outcome — a lot of IT jobs creating a new middle class,” the CCAP chief said.

To further promote growth in provinces, Hernandez noted that the industry is closely working with the government.

The industry and former Information and Communication Technology Office (ICTO) in the last eight years have jointly developed the Next Wave Cities Program, identifying cities outside Metro Manila which can be hubs for IT-BPM companies.

“With our partners from the government, the former ICT Office, we jointly embarked on Next Wave Cities Program which allow us to have a better understanding what exists in cities outside Metro Manila, get a relevant data, create a scorecard for those cities, recognized the ones that showing high potential to become a business location for us,” Hernandez added.

For this year, the country’s ‘next wave’ cities are Baguio, Cagayan de Oro, Dagupan, Dasmariñas, Dumaguete, Lipa, Malolos, Naga, Sta. Rosa, and Taytay.

The cities of Balanga, Batangas, Iriga, Laoag, Legazpi, Puerto Princesa, Roxas, Tarlac, Tuguegarao, and Zamboanga which were noted as new emerging cities, have potential to be the ‘next wave’ cities.

Moreover, Hernandez mentioned that there would be huge opportunities for the Philippines in the IT-BPM industry as only 17 percent of total work that can be subcontracted globally were currently outsourced.

This only valued at USD 166 billion out of USD 3 trillion worth of work that can be outsourced.

Between 2015 and 2022, global IT-BPM industry is seen to grow by 6 percent annually.

Hernandez said local industry growth would be two to three times faster than the global industry.

Revenue of the country’s IT-BPM industry in 2015 was estimated at USD 22 billion.

The CCAP president said the industry was also on track of its USD 25-billion revenue target for this year with employment reaching to 1.3 million. (PNA) RMA/KMC