Dell opens new call center

American computer maker Dell Inc. opened its second customer call center in the Philippines Thursday, bringing the number of local employees to 2,600, a company official said.

"We’re growing quite rapidly," Dick Hunter, Dell’s vice president for customer experience, told a news conference.

He said the company plans to hire about 100 people per month until it reaches the target of about 2,600 employees.

"Our expansion is evidence of the quality and talent of professionals here in the Philippines," he said.

Dell’s customer contact network includes more than 25 locations globally.

Company officials declined to discuss investment details, but Philippine Trade Secretary Peter Favila said Dell had infused investments of P466 million ($9.7 million; euro7.3 million) for the second call center.

Dell invested 366 million pesos ($7.6 million; euro5.7 million) last year for its first customer support facility in Manila. It now employs 1,400 workers from just 100, when the center opened in January last year.

The call center industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Philippines, which has a large pool of college-educated workforce easily trained for English-language customer assistance.

The Contact Center Association of the Philippines projects the local call center business to become a $7.3 billion (euro5.5 billion) industry by 2010. It employed almost 180,000 people last year. – AP