Philippines Remain Optimistic Despite Crisis
By: Kathryna R. Ahorro

Economists have sounded off that the Philippine economy may outshine its East and Southeast Asian neighbors from now to a couple more years. According to them, this is due to the economic management that the government has implemented. The Philippines is one of the more resilient Asian countries that are not much affected by the worldwide economic downturn. GDP this year is expected to rise by a maximum of 3 percent, higher than neighboring countries like Vietnam and China's.

For the succeeding years, an average growth of 4.5 percent in GDP may be achieved. This steady increase in GDP is largely attributed to two factors: overseas worker remittances especially from those in healthcare and education, and business process outsourcing. Both are considered to be recession-proof sectors.

In the past decades, there was a big failure of employing the abundant labor force of the country thus forcing Filipinos to work abroad. Now, due to the many career opportunities in the outsourcing industry, a lot are able to find work and are also able to contribute to foreign exchange of the country since most of the outsourcing clients are offshore.

In the call center sector alone, there are around 800 call centers operating in the country. Add to this the different transcription firms, backroom office support providers, and web developers who also provide outsource services. The Business Processing Association of the Philippines has conducted a recent survey on companies who are providing medium to high-value services offshore. Major industry players are expecting up to 200% of employment growth this year seeing that the economic crisis has forced most companies offshore to cut down on production costs like manpower and rentals. This greatly benefits the Philippines in serving as a “sponge” with the surplus of graduates annually who can no longer be accommodated in the other employment sectors.

It is good news that despite the worldwide financial meltdown, the Philippines remains to have a bright future. As long as BPO standards are continually met in order to gain the confidence of the clients then a great bulk of the nation’s assets remain covered.