Training for non-voice BPO jobs boosted

THE Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) is prepared to review and enhance its training regulations (TRs) in business process outsourcing (BPO) industry following a United States proposal, which discourages American companies from outsourcing overseas, including the Philippines.

Retooling and retraining of workers, who will be displaced if there would be any, will be done so they can land in jobs in other sectors, said Tesda director-general Joel Villanueva, even as believed that the bill will not have a dent on the BPO industry.

Tesda will vigorously undertake the training of potential call center and other BPO workers to make them more competitive, efficient and attuned to the demands of the times. We're considering a review of our TRs to ensure a ready pool of skilled workers so that the companies will continue to do business here.

We aim to expand our training to BPO-related and other emerging skills to minimize possible impact in case the US bill is passed. We will review our product mix to focus on other BPO-related skills that have equally high demand such as software development and other skills as may be defined by the industry, he said. This way, we can diversify and develop more skills and spread out opportunity for employment in other emerging areas.

The agency already strengthened its partnership with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) in training and certifying prospective call center agents, trainers and those engaged in non-voice-based skills such as software development, animation and medical transcription, with future additions of the game development and legal transcription services, a statement from Tesda also said.

Investments in our human resources through skills development shall remain a priority to make our people highly skilled, globally competitive and flexible so that they can easily adapt to changing technology and work conditions, Villanueva stressed. We will continue to train and retrain so they can shift to other industries or careers if necessary.(CGC)