The Call Center Boom in the Philippines
Over the years, the Philippines has experienced a drastic but advantageous change in employment, thanks to the call center boom. Fresh graduates and those looking for a more stable career have joined the call center workforce in the Philippines. This has spawned a new subculture of hip and technology-savvy people. In the wee hours of the morning, people could be seen scurrying in and out of coffee places for their caffeine fix, frappe in one hand and cellular phone in the other. The hustle and bustle of these individuals shows how dynamic the call center industry is in the Philippines.
The rise of the call center industry in the Philippines. Call center businesses located all over the Philippines are either foreign or locally owned. Their rapid increase in number has made the call center industry of the Philippines an important part of the economy. It has created a stronger middle class and has decreased the country’s unemployment rate. Although the call center industry in the Philippines is relatively young, it makes up ten percent of the nation’s GDP or Gross Domestic Product.
The call center industry in the Philippines started quite small. In fact, there were once only four pioneer call center companies in the Philippines. That was the year 2000. Today, the steady growth of the call center industry in the Philippines makes it a key global player in offshore call center outsourcing. There are currently over 100 call center companies in the Philippines and the number is still rising continuously. Every year, the growth of the call center business in the Philippines is said to be at a staggering 100 percent. The call center industry in the Philippines is also ever-expanding. A lot of call center companies based in the Philippines have broadened their horizons by providing high value services for their clients.
Why the Philippines? The Philippines has become a favorite location for call center businesses, and the sudden boom of the call center business in the Philippines attests to this. This could be attributed to most Filipinos’ mastery of the English language and their very workable diction. Filipinos consider English their second language. Its integration into their academic curriculum enables them to speak and write in the language very well, they might as well be considered as native speakers.
The academic-learned English of Filipinos might seem like a disadvantage, but they are very capable of adjusting to American slang and other accents. The Philippines is a former US colony and its culture, lifestyle, and language has been ingrained in most Filipinos. This enables Filipino call center agents in the Philippines to be highly adaptable to American ways of speaking.
Most Filipinos who apply for call center jobs in the Philippines are either in college or college graduates, making them highly qualified for the job. As a result, agents who are part of the call center workforce in the Philippines provide high-quality output. So even though the cost of labor is comparatively higher than other overseas call centers, many companies select the Philippines as a prime location for their call center businesses.