US firm to offshore 6,000 jobs to RP

The largest American savings and loans holding company and the eighth biggest bank based in the US in terms of assets, intends to offshore up to 6,000 jobs to the Philippines within 18 months "in line with a series of initiatives to significantly reduce administrative costs," a top labor group leader said.

Citing US regulatory filings by Washington Mutual Inc. (WaMu) based in Seattle, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines secretary general and former Senator Ernesto Herrera said many of the jobs that would be transferred involve "handling telephone sales and service for the bank’s mortgage and consumer lending units."

"This is definitely welcome news. This means more business for our call centers and back office solutions providers. And more business for them means more new job opportunities for our unemployed fresh college graduates and young professionals," Herrera said.

WaMu’s decision to move jobs out of the US, according to Herrera, forms part of "a strategy to relegate back office jobs to lower-cost locations."

"The bank’s in-house call centers and back offices in several US states are now handling many of the jobs that would eventually be entrusted to a vendor in Manila," he said.

Herrera said just last week, WaMu notified 1,400 employees in its call centers in Seattle and in Jacksonville, Florida that they would lose their jobs either by July or September as part of the company’s cost-saving strategy.