Telus offers hope to jobless Filipinos

As thousands of laid-off Filipino migrant workers worldwide return to their homeland with shattered dreams and empty pockets, Telus Canada is offering some hope for the jobless in The Philippines.

This month, the Canada-based call centre firm opened its fourth facility in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, looking to add at least 3,000 workers.

Telus’ newest facility is located in Araneta Centre in Cubao, adding to current sites located at Ortigas Centre in Pasig and Fort Bonifacio in Taguig, Philippine media reported.

The Cubao facility, officially inaugurated last week, currently employs 900 workers.

"We are aiming to get this facility to full capacity of at least 3,000 workers," said Jeffrey Puritt, Telus International president, in a Manila press briefing.

Telus, with $9.7 billion of annual revenue and 11.6 million customer connections, took over the local call centre business of Ambergris in 2005. The Vancouver-based firm currently employs 8,000 workers in The Philippines.

The Philippines is not only seeing layoffs in its army of overseas migrant workers. Over 42,000 Filipinos working in their homeland have also lost jobs as of this month. In October last year the Philippine National Statistics Office reported that 6.8 per cent of the labour force or 2.53 million Filipinos were jobless.

Latest figures provided by the National Economic and Development Authority in Manila showed about 5,700 Overseas Filipino workers or OFWs being laid off.

Of the total OFWs displaced, the bulk came from Taiwan at 78.7 percent; United Arab Emirates, 5.6 percent; Canada, 3.4 percent; Macau, 2.9 percent; and Brunei, 2.3 percent.

The Philippines relies heavily on remittances from its overseas workers. Total remittances last year amounted to US$16.4 billion.

But it is all not bad news despite the gloomy financial outlook.

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector is seen to generate some 10,000 jobs this year in The Philippines.

Career specialists said the retuning Filipinos are prime candidates for jobs in The Philippines, like the ones that Telus is creating.

"Their overseas experience, language and understanding are all assets that companies like Telus will be looking for at their call centres," said B. Teo, who runs an Asian consulting firm.

"This will be a niche growth area for multinationals looking to outsource to The Philippines and cash in on the skills acquired by Filipinos overseas," he told The Filipino Post in a telephone interview from Shanghai.

Jeffrey Puritt, Telus International president said the company’s expansion in The Philippines is geared towards addressing rising non-voice requirements, when speaking to the media in Manila.

"As the contact centre industry evolves, it’s more than just voice. The trend is definitely up the value chain," he said.

Globally, Telus has between 34,000 and 35,000 employees, he said. Its Philippine business is its biggest offshore, he added.

That’s mainly because call centres are part of the new economy of The Philippines, aiming to provide fresh sources of jobs to the upcoming boom of workers. Almost half of the 86.2 million people in The Philippines are younger than 20 years old.

According to some estimates The Philippines will surpass India as home to the world’s largest call centre industry to generate some US $3 billion a year in revenues.

The new Telus site, in the Araneta Centre Cyber Park in Cubao, will provide inbound customer care, outbound sales, market research and business process solutions for clients in the telecommunications, consumer electronics and finance, Puritt said, according to GMA news.

Agents deployed in the site will handle a mix of new and old accounts, the bulk of which will be in the telecommunications industry, he said.

Moving forward, Puritt said Telus would be beefing up its offerings to include more higher-value services such as network troubleshooting, human resource and finance.

"There’s a genesis of a whole new wave of offshoring activities," he said. "We’re going to grow the more complex, higher-value services set so we can serve even more industries."

Telus Philippines plans to expand its range of offerings but is still "cautious" about growing its site and employee numbers, Puritt said.

"Our approach to growth and expansion is conservative," he said. "We don’t have a ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy. We’re just cautiously optimistic that our growth targets will be met."

Puritt, however, said Telus is not migrating jobs from Canada to The Philippines.

"In fact, we are likewise expanding our operations there as well as nearshore sites in Latin America, for example," he said.

Telus last month announced it will open a call centre in Las Vegas, Nevada that would create 1,000 jobs in the gambling Mecca.

The Vegas call centre will support Telus International by adding Spanish-language support to the division’s call centre and business process outsourcing services.

But not everyone is happy about Telus creating jobs in The Philippines.

The Telecommunications Workers Union says Telus earns money in Canada and has a duty to employ people in Canada and is outraged by the outsourcing.

Telus has responded by saying it employs about 29,000 people in Canada and continues to hire in Canada for growth areas of the company.

The company said no one in Canada is losing their jobs because of the new call centres overseas. 

To find out about the career opportunities with Telus in the Philippines go to www.telusinternational.com.ph