CIPC to recruit workers in Visayas, Mindanao

THE Cebu Investment and Promotion Center (CIPC) will recruit people from Visayas and Mindanao to work in Cebu to address the manpower requirement of the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries here.

CIPC managing director Joel Mari Yu said he is planning to bring KPO and BPO companies to various key cities in the Visayas and Mindanao to promote Cebu as an employment destination.

Yu said the move is meant to address the shortage of manpower supply in Cebu and secure its ranking in the list of “emerged” BPO destinations in the world. He said the move is urgent, given the projected growth in these sectors.

He said in an interview on Friday that the companies already bring opportunities “greater than our capability in terms of manpower requirement.”

Fast growth

“It is growing so fast that if there are 20,000 available talents for this industry, they will all be absorbed in just a matter of weeks,” he said.

The KPO-BPO industry in Cebu currently employs 70,000 to 75,000.

Instead of doing individual recruitment in provincial areas, Yu said the CIPC will gather all KPO and BPO companies and bring them to various areas in Visayas and Mindanao through job fairs to look for highly-skilled and qualified employees.

“This job fair will not only highlight the job opportunities of these companies but also promote Cebu as an employment destination,” he said.

“We are going to bring those talents here because if we are to depend only on our own internal population, we are too small. We are insignificant.”

He identified Bacolod, Iloilo, Tacloban and Cagayan de Oro City as among the initial areas they will be visiting.

Infra in place

Yu targets to grow Cebu’s KPO and BPO workforce to 100,000 in two years. “We see no problem with infrastructure because it’s already in place,” he said.

According to Yu, the recruitment effort will help strengthen Cebu’s footing as one of the emerged BPO destinations in the world.

Citing Tholons’ report released last week, Yu said Cebu has kept its ninth place ranking in the emerged BPO destination list.

But he fears Cebu may be overtaken in the ranking if it remains complacent.

“We can get dislodged in the ranking not in terms of quality but in quantity,” he said.

Yu said CIPC is now studying countries included in the Top 20 list.

Apart from inviting skilled workers, Yu said they also want to invite rich people from provincial areas to relocate to Cebu.