DAVAO CITY – The information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) sector in Davao City estimates that BPO-related jobs grew by as much as 35 percent in 2008.
With the current global economic crisis, companies in the United States are turning to business process outsourcing to cut costs and increase their margin of profits. Davao City is tagged as one of the country’s next wave cities, which are hubs for the growing IT-BPO sector.
To prepare for its growth, the government through the Tesda (Technical Educational Skills and Development Authority) is offering 14,000 scholarships out of its 809,000 slots under the Pangulong Gloria Scholarship Program (PGSP) for 2009. Included in the list of scholarship grants are IT-BPO related courses, particularly medical and legal transcriptions.
One of the schools offering BPO-related courses and accepting PGSP scholarships is MTC Academy Davao, a company providing transcription training. It already offers short-term courses on legal, medical, business and entertainment transcriptions.
MTC Academy proprietor Lizabel Holganza who is also the current President of ICT Davao said that job opportunities in transcription is fit for many Dabawenyos, also, she said, you don’t have to be a degree holder to qualify nor physically disability be a hindrance in getting a transcription job.
MTC Academy Davao has trained a hundred Tesda scholars since 2006 and is looking for more people to meet the hike in demand for BPO workers particularly transcriptionists. In 2008, there was an increase of about 56 percent in BPO-related jobs in Davao as more companies are setting up outsourcing operations in Davao.
Greg Dunham, owner of RTG International, an IT firm specializing in backroom outsourcing operations and a recent investor to the City, said that Davao’s main attractions is the low cost of doing business in the city unlike in Manila and Cebu where the standards of living is higher. (PIA XI)
