IBPAP president and CEO Rey Untal said the roadmap they bared last year was supposed to have been good until 2022, up until the pandemic threw a monkey wrench to their numbers.
Data from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority showed that from January to July 2020, registered investments from the BPO sector grew 37 percent to P11.4 billion amid the global health crisis.
Internet giant Google has confirmed that it pulled out an outsourced work from the Cebu operations of BPO firm Sykes after a few employees were caught converting online gift cards into bitcoins.
The Philippine office market has continued to grow “making it unique in the world,” according to real estate firm Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC) in a recent study on the performance of the office, residential, and tourism sectors in the first half of 2020.
Some regular employees of BPO companies were reportedly being put on "floating status" after coming into contact with Covid-19 patients and after offshore accounts pulled out their Philippine operations due to the global economic downturn.
It is not business as usual yet in the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) space, but the sector continues to open job opportunities amid the pandemic, industry group IBPAP said.
Call center operator Alorica said it needs close to 4,000 jobs by end of July, saying the BPO industry continues to provide essential services even during a post-pandemic scenario.
Sen. Franklin M. Drilon warned that to treat POGOs as part of the BPO industry will be detrimental to the country's efforts to collect franchise tax owed to the government in 2019 by majority of the 60 licensed online gaming operators.
