The call center industry in the Philippines is now considered the biggest employer in the country, in terms of growth rate. The trade and industry department said call centers are hiring 1,500 to 2,000 people every week.
The call center life in the Philippines is fast paced that you wouldn’t know exactly what would happen next. The job itself is not redundant, and definitely not a routine. Issues that are brought about by customers maybe similar but the manner by which they are presented and the way an agent deals with it are not the same. The Filipino call center agents, technical support representatives or customer service representative, provide a refreshing voice in the call center scene. The Filipinos depict hospitality and courtesy and they match it with quality service in a way that other nationalities cannot deliver.
There maybe a lot of disadvantages in the business but so do other businesses. It always depends on the mindset of an individual.
In the call center industry, the rise to corporate ladder doesn’t depend on the tenure but on the skills and capacity of the person that the management sees that he is fit for the job – it is the performance that counts. Unlike other companies or government offices, they count the years of service to get an increase or promotion.
There are already about 45 Filipino and foreign players in the Philippines’ booming call center business, which has generated 30,000 jobs in just five years here. The country already ranks second to India in attracting call center business and government officials are confident it will overtake the latter in the next five years.
With its attractive salary amid low-paying and joblessness, thousands of graduates have been lured into the call center business in the last five years. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) estimates that a Philippine agent receives starting pay of P12,000 to P15,000 to as much as P40,000 for higher positions every month.
Yet while call centers get higher salary than ordinary rank and file employees, DTI admits that Filipino call center agents get only a fifth of their American counterpart.
The department also says that Filipino call center workers stay an average of 2.5 years on the job compared with about eight to nine month for Americans, which is also on a part-time basis.
Even call centers confess that while there seems to be a large pool of English speaking college graduates being churned out by Philippine schools, only a few qualify. Out of 100 applicants in a call center firm, for instance, only 5 to 10 are hired.
The environment in the call center in the Philippines is highly toxic. The call center hub is becoming like the American rat race the Filipinos love to dream of going.
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