2 US firms open new BPO centers in Phl

MANILA, Philippines - More business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs are available to Filipino college graduates with the establishment by two large American companies of back offices here, Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo said yesterday.

Romulo, who chairs the committee on higher and technical education of the House of Representatives, said New York-based American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and Virginia-based Capital One Financial Corp. are now recruiting personnel for their back office operations here.

He said among the employees needed are account directors, operations managers, team leaders, finance and accounting associates, call center agents, business process engineers, workforce managers and forecasters, trainers, and quality analysts.

“The new business services activities here of both AIG and Capital One will surely help provide well-paying jobs to some of our college graduates who are still out of work,” he added.

He predicted that large American corporations would continue to drive jobs creation in the Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in the months ahead.

“To many Western, mostly US-based global corporations, outsourcing to the Philippines is no longer just about access to lower-cost, college-educated, fluent English-speaking labor. To them, outsourcing has become part of a conscious strategy to harness the young and highly creative human capital of the Philippines,” he stressed.

Romulo is author of the Data Privacy Act, which has helped to encourage outsourcing to Manila by assuring the confidentiality of personal details collected by BPO firms from clients and stored in computer systems.

The back offices here of AIC and Capital One are expected to help provide world-class support services to their businesses around the globe.

Established in 1919, AIG offers a wide array of insurance and financial services in more than 130 countries. With over 63,000 employees worldwide, AIG generated $65.65 billion in revenues in 2012.

Capital One is a diversified financial services company that provides credit card, home, auto and commercial loans in America. It is the sixth largest bank holding company in US by deposits and the biggest provider there of Internet-only banking services.

Founded in 1993, Capital One has a staff of almost 40,000 in America, and generated some $23.8 billion in revenues in 2012.

Romulo said many global corporations have transferred some of their non-core, labor-intensive and information technology-enabled business services jobs to the Philippines.