CEBU CITY — The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry could eventually double its workforce due to potential “new opportunities” from advancements in artificial intelligence, Concentrix Philippines SVP and Country Leader Amit Jagga said.
While AI and automation may reduce the number of workers required to do the same job in all sectors, BPOs are “still growing as an industry”, Jagga said.
“How is that happening? The answer to that is all these new technologies are also creating new opportunities and more complex work for people,” he said in a Concentrix site visit arranged by the US Embassy in Manila.
As an example, Jagga cited the arrival of GPS technology that enabled the massive ride-hailing industry to flourish, which created “a lot of downstream work for CX (customer experience) engagement companies” like Concentrix.
“So yes, repetitive work will go away [because of AI], but with it will come more complex transactions that will need the human touch. And there’ll be a lot more, new kinds of industries that will be created which will need CX, which will help us expand in the future,” Jagga told reporters.
“While automation creates disruption to the existing work, the CX industry in total will still continue to grow with new industries and more complex work.”
The IT-BPO industry employs about 1.4 million Filipinos.
As technologies change the world, Jagga acknowledged that “there’s constant re-skilling needed to adapt and remain successful.”
“But there will be more than enough opportunities for the current labor force. And we do believe that the current 1.4 million is actually going to double in the future,” Jagga said.
“The risk would be for people who will not re-skill,” he continued.
Jagga said Concentrix would “continue to invest in the re-skilling and upskilling of our staff to make them future-ready.”