Business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs in the Philippines are expected to continuously grow despite the challenges posed by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in its processes.
The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (ITBPAP) told Malaya Business Insight AI integration should not be much of a concern for the current BPO job pool as it serves as a form of “job augmentation.”
This after Bloomberg in an article and podcast forecasted a potential 300,000 job losses in the industry, particularly voice-based service, as the integration of AI is said to make it easier for voice-based operations to transfer business to areas with cheap labor.
“We don’t subscribe to the 300,000 number of potential job losses cited. On the contrary, we expect to continue to grow between 5 to 7 percent in 2025. IBPAP believes the primary impact of Gen AI will be in the form of job augmentation rather than job loss. Our current assumption is that 80 to 90 percent of the AI impact will lead to job transformation, with only 10 to 20 percent potentially affected by automation,” IBPAP said in a statement emailed to Malaya Business Insight.
“Even in cases where jobs are automated, it doesn’t necessarily mean a net loss; many roles will evolve, and new opportunities will emerge to offset some of the disruptions. We are committed to retooling and transitioning toward roles that can thrive in this changing landscape,” it added.
IBPAP noted the Philippines is also poised to benefit from further outsourcing as it is estimated that only “30 percent of offshoreable jobs globally have been offshored so far, meaning any job losses we anticipate are likely to be offset by new volumes of work.”
“The challenge we face remains meeting the demand for talent. This is the trend that our research partner Everest projects to continue until 2025-2026,” it said.
According to IBPAP, the IT and business processing management (BPM) industry remains “strong and on track,” with the industry looking at 1.82 million full-time equivalent working hours of a BPO agent by end-2024 and industry revenues growing by 7 percent to $38 billion.
“The momentum is on the back of continued strong demand for digital CX (customer experience) and continued growth in shared services including banking, financial services, and healthcare,” it said.
“IBPAP remains confident in the Philippines’ position as the world’s leading hub for customer-centric and digitally enabled services, even as the landscape evolves with advancements in AI,” it added.
The association said while there may be some specific tasks that will be considered repetitive and automatable with the advent of AI, it will still present opportunities to “upskill and right-skill for new work types such as data annotation, pre-training/fine-tuning transformers, and trust and safety present growth potential.”
“Developing skills for new AI jobs, building in-house training academies, and strengthening domain skills such as healthcare and banking can capitalize on these opportunities,” it said.
IBPAP also noted the need to significantly increase computer science talent in the Philippines, with the group launching a collaboration program with the Commission on Higher Education-Skills Progression Partnership Program.
The program links select colleges to leading IT-BPM firms, integrating industry-designed training into school curricula, training faculty and promoting replication in other universities.
IBPAP also partnered with Google by providing Google’s “AI Essentials” certified training course for students through selected university partnerships.
“We need to all work together – the industry, government and the academe in upskilling and reskilling our talent pool to adapt to new technologies and integrate them in our processes and models for efficiency and effectiveness,” it said.
To address the challenge of AI integration within the industry, IBPAP said it has established the AI Advisory Council to focus on ethical AI implementation, continuous learning and risk management.
It is also leading efforts to develop essential AI skills, such as data science and prompt engineering, by forging partnerships between government, industry, academia and training providers that aim to equip the IT-BPM workforce with requisite skills for the new work types expected, IBPAP added.
“To mitigate the possible impacts of AI in the IT-BPM industry, strong collaboration between stakeholders, not only from the government but also from academe and industry must be reinforced. Effective AI governance is crucial to serving the Philippine society responsibly and equitably across various dimensions. To achieve this, we need a holistic approach centered on four key pillars: education, engineering, enforcement, and ethics,” it said.
