BPO SECTOR: AN ECONOMIC PILLAR
In 2016, the IT-BPM revenue for 2016 came in at $ 22.9 billion. By 2020, US source expects BPO revenue to reach $55 billion. OBG added in the report that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas stated that the industry will soon overtake the value of remittances from overseas Filipino workers, which currently account for an estimated 10% of annual GDP. It is known that remittances from overseas workers, along with the BPO industry, are the country’s top two earners of foreign exchange.
“The industry will soon surpass foreign remittances as the single largest contributor to GDP, driven by growth in the emerging segments of health care, analytics, and financial services outsourcing,” OBG stated.
On the employment aspect, OBG indicated that the BPO industry has also experienced a similar rise in its record for job creation. The sector was reported to have generated an increase in job opportunities from 101,000 employees in 2004 to 900,000 in 2013. OBG also reported that IBPAP had indicated an estimate of 1.1 million people employed in the industry at the end of 2015, with new jobs primarily generated in knowledge- intensive business services including computer and IT services, as well as in research and development.
By 2016, the sector is reported to have employed approximately 1.15 million Filipinos as driven by the expansion of global in-house call centers. On the other hand, it was forecasted that the sector’s employment reached to 1.3 million in 2017.
Meanwhile, IBPAP drafted a new Philippine IT- BPM Roadmap 20162022, which targets the following: 1.8 million direct jobs; 7.6 million direct and indirect IT- BPM employment; 500,000 jobs outside of NCR; $ 40 billion in revenue; 15% global IT-BPM market share.
The said roadmap aims to strengthen domain expertise and capabilities in the emerging sectors and ensure that the Fi l ipino talent is future ready amid rapid innovations in the areas of digital transformation, artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, as well as evolving delivery models. —