IT related job vacancies to reach 15,000 in 2009

Cebu is still far from being saturated in terms of accommodating more Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) investments as manpower supply needed to fill in job vacancies in IT related services is expected to reach 15,000 by 2009.

"It may even go as high as 20,000 to 50,000 in the next two years," said Bonifacio Belen, executive director of Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (Cedfit).

Belen said the BPO industry targets to hire around 10,000 employees and an additional 5,000 software developers and engineers.

 Belen earlier said the manpower supply for IT and IT-enabled services is expected to reach P100,000 people by 2010.

The Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) said that by 2010, the BPO industry nationwide will be needing 75,000 software developers and 950,000 workers..

"Cebu wants to get at least 10 percent of that number," Belen said.

Globally, IT and IT-enabled services are expected to earn $450 billion in revenues.

Belen said US$130 billion of which will be coming from specific industries that the Philippines has capabilities in, such as the BPO sector, transcription, software development, engineering design and back-office management.

"We're only second from India, which aims to get 60 percent of the total global revenues," he said.

He further expressed confidence that Cebu will get a significant percentage of the global IT revenues, following its ranking as the number one emerging BPO destination in the world last year based on the survey by Global Services and investment advisory firm Tholons.

 He however stressed that the province must produce more IT and IT-enabled graduates to sustain the demand of the industry.

At present, there are 5,000 software developers in Cebu while the BPO industry in the province has 22,000 workers.

Belen said the number of software developers in Cebu has to grow by 200 percent while the number of BPO workers double in the next two years in order to match BPAP's forecast.

 Cebu and other provinces in Central Visayas only produce about 2,200 IT graduates yearly.

Belen emphasized that only 30 percent of the total number of graduates in the region would qualify for an entry-level position in software development companies.

In the next two years, Cebu's IT graduates would still be sufficient to absorb the requirements of the incoming BPO companies, he added.