Call centers seen to generate additional 1 million new jobs by 2028

MANILA, Philippines — The call center industry is seen generating around one million jobs in he next six years backed by the country’s competent talent pool and quality service, according to the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP).

During the Contact Islands Conference in Boracay, the CCAP outlined the provisions of the 2022-2028 information technology- business process outsourcing (IT-BPM) industry roadmap and discussed pathways towards 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 to 2.3 million from 1.3 million and annual revenue of $49 billion by 2028.

Another scenario looks at having more than 600,000 additional jobs and a $40 billion revenue, while the least optimistic scenario projects 300,000 more jobs and $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,” CCAP president Mitch Locsin said.

“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,” Locsin said.

The organization stressed that the Philippine contact center industry constitutes more than 40 percent of the global CXM market and continues to be a very far number one market leader.

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

The group stressed that the over 370 attendees of the conference rallied behind the industry forecasts.

“Stakeholders, including government agencies, have expressed support to the industry, and committed to work with them,” CCAP said.

Under its roadmap, the IT-BPM industry identified four acceleration pillars to ensure continued growth. These include government support, talent development, infrastructure expansion, and  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 Hernandez said.

“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 added.

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 or vocational programs to increase employability, tapping new sources for talent recruitment, ensuring last mile connectivity, and marketing among untapped global buyers and customers.