BPO stakeholders confident to generate 1 million jobs by 2028

CEBU, Philippines — The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) stakeholders in the Philippines, through the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), expressed confidence to generate another one million jobs by 2028.

During the recently concluded Contact Islands Conference held in Boracay Island, CCAP outlined the provisions of the 2022-2028 industry roadmap and discussed pathways toward maximizing global customer experience management (CXM) opportunities.

Based on a high-growth scenario forecast, the industry sees the potential to increase the number of its full-time employees (FTEs) from 1.3 million to 2.3 million and achieve annual revenue of US$49 billion by 2028.

Another scenario looks at having more than 600,000 additional jobs and a US$40 billion revenue, while the least optimistic scenario projects 300,000 more jobs and US$32 billion annual revenue by 2028.

“With the right support and policy landscape, the industry is keen on achieving the high-level of growth scenario. We are optimistic that our value proposition - highlighted by our competent talent pool, our track record in delivering unrivaled quality and business outcomes for our clients – remains strong and highly relevant, and will allow us to continue to take a significant percentage of the outsourced CXM demand across the globe,” said CCAP president Mitch Locsin.

The Philippine contact center industry constitutes more than 40% of the global CXM market and continues to be number one market leader.

“What makes us even more inspired is that half of the 1 million additional jobs forecasted would come from the countryside, making growth more inclusive and impactful,” Locsin added.

The more the 370 attendees at the Contact Islands Conference rallied behind the industry forecasts. Stakeholders, including government agencies, have expressed support for the industry, and are committed to working with them.

Under its roadmap, the industry identified four acceleration pillars to ensure continued growth. These are (1) government support, (2) talent development, (3) infrastructure expansion, and (4) marketing and brand repositioning.

“Roadmaps represent our collective aspiration, our vision as an industry. It contains a blueprint of how we collectively work together to create the conditions necessary to achieve that vision. Roadmap 2028 is meant to inspire, galvanize, and rally multi-sectoral efforts to work together and create one million more direct jobs and contribute $49 Billion export revenues to the Philippine economy by 2028,” CCAP Chairman Benedict C. Hernandez remarked at the conference.

“A million more direct jobs matter to our national economic recovery. It matters to our country, it matters to our fellow Filipinos. With support from our government, academe, and other enabling sectors, we are confident we can achieve this” he said.

The Contact Islands Conference is CCAP’s annual event which provides industry executives a platform to exchange views on matters critical to industry resilience and growth.

This year, conference speakers and panelists talked about specific recommendations under each of the industry roadmap acceleration pillars. These include, among others, crafting dedicated remote working policies to enable easier adoption of hybrid workplace, reskilling, and upskilling of employees, developing robust senior high school and technical/vocational programs to increase employability, tapping new sources for talent recruitment, ensuring last mile connectivity, marketing among untapped global buyers/customers, among others.

In 2021 and 2022, despite the pandemic, the IT-BPM industry has not only shown remarkable resilience but has grown in terms of headcount and revenues. For the past two years, more than 110,000 new jobs were created because of the industry.