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MANILA – The country’s business process outsourcing sector is expected to shell out a total of P247 billion in salaries to its workers this year, boosting consumption spending, a lawmaker said Thursday.
“No matter how we look at it, P247 billion represents a huge amount of money being coursed through the economy every year, and helping to drive consumption spending,” Pasig Representative Roman Romulo said.
The consumption spending will help create recurring demand for goods and services, thus perking up domestic industries, he said.
The P247 billion represents about 40 to 45 percent of the sector’s revenue, projected to hit up to $13 billion this year.
“To put the P247 billion into perspective, it is equal to around 14 percent of the national government’s P1.816-trillion spending program this year, and larger than the budgets of the top five departments,” Romulo said.
A previous survey by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed that BPO employees on average receive P383,863 in annual compensation.
Romulo said the P247 billion is also some 53 percent greater than the P161 billion in combined annual benefits paid by the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System and Philippine Health Insurance Corp. to their respective members.
The SSS and GSIS paid P76 billion and P50 billion, respectively, in benefits to their members in 2011, while Philhealth paid P35 billion.
The BPO industry is projected to rake in up to $27 billion in annual revenues and directly engage some 1.3 million Filipino workers by 2016. It posted $11 billion in revenues on a labor force of 638,000 in 2011.
This year, the sector hopes to create 126,000 new jobs and generate $2 billion in extra earnings, according to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines.
The industry encompasses contact center services; medical, legal and other data transcription; animation; software development; engineering design; and digital content.
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