BPO changes unlikely due to Trump, US envoy says

ABS-CBN News Posted at Mar 01 2017 09:55 AM http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/03/01/17/bpo-changes-unlikely-due-to-trump-us-envoy-says MANILA – American companies are unlikely to change their operations in the Philippines to align with US President Donald Trump’s protectionist stand, Washington’s envoy to Manila has said. The Philippines offers “very very capable, smart employees, English fluency (and) reasonable labor costs,” Ambassador Sung Kim said Tuesday. “We will not see any dramatic changes to US companies’ BPO operations in the Philippines,” Kim said. The business process outsourcing sectors employ 1.15 million and American companies account for 70 percent of revenues that are projected to reach $33.8 billion in 2022, according to the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group. Some BPO stakeholders have expressed concerns Trump’s promise to bring jobs back to the US could hurt the industry. — reports from Vivienne Gulla, ABS-CBN News