Convergys Corp., one of the biggest business process outsourcing firm (BPO) in the Philippines is looking to hire at least 3,600 new employees this year.

The plan of Convergys to hire additional employees was announced by Convergys Philippines country manager and managing and managing director Marife Zamora. She said the expansion is meant to meet the demand of its clients, who mostly belong to the top Fortune 50 list of global firms.

The company has expanded its five of its 12 existing sites in the Philippines, and with the additional new employees, it hopes to bring its total workforce to 25,000 before the year ends.

The sites that are included in the expansion are the: UP TechnoHub in Diliman, Quezon City; San Lazaro in Sta. Cruz, Manila; Nuvali in Laguna; Cebu i3 in AsiaTown Cebu; and Bacolod.

The expansion involved the addition of 2,300 workstations, prompting the need to hire at least 3,600 more people. Of the total, an estimated 350 were for the Bacolod site, 600 for Cebu, and 2,800 for Metro Manila.

Zamora said that the Philippine’s call center agents were among the best, if not the best in Convergy’s global workforce, which fuels client demand for more business to be outsourced here.

“We’re expanding mainly because of the outstanding performance of our employees here and the overall demand for the high-quality service that the Philippine operations are delivering,” she said.

While many of Convergys’ 12 existing facilities were already filled to capacity, she said there were still other sites that had room for expansion. She added however, the company was already looking at several locations nationwide to house possible new site

The country’s largest Filipino-owned coffee company plans to expand operations this year by opening up one or two outlets each month, or a total of 18 stores before the year ends.

Figaro Coffee Co. sets aside a total of P78 million to fund the increase of its 65 coffee shops in the Philippines. Marketing manager of Figaro Coffee Systems Inc., Ace L. Azarraga, noted that each store has an estimated cost of P6.5 million. They have just opened two stores recently, one in DBP Makati and the other in Dasmarinas, Cavite.

“Figaro Coffee Company is now keeping a critical eye on expanding in our home-market, which will focus mostly on business districts around the country as we want more and more people to experience our local barako coffee,” Azarraga said.

The DBP Makati branch is a full store carrying their complete line-up of coffee drinks, breakfast, pasta, pizza, all day breakfast, ala carte, sandwhiches and pastries. The store is located at the ground floor of DBP building, Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., cor. Makati Ave., Makati City., which is perfect for business and casual meetings.

Figaro’s expansion program is in line with its tradition to continue serving the finest native barako coffee in the country by opening more outlets. “As we continue to expand, more and more Filipino coffee farmers are benefited. Figaro Coffee Company only buys local coffee beans,” Azarraga said.

Of the 65 Figaro branches nationwide, most of which are in Luzon, 35 are franchise-owned and 30 are company-owned.

Figaro was established in 1993 and is  a 100-percent Filipino-owned company whose product lines include specialty roasted local coffee varieties and various coffee-related paraphernalia.

More job opportunities for Filipino nurses and engineers are waiting in New Zealand and Australia. Filipino professionals will have more chances of finding jobs in New Zealand and Australia as these two countries vowed to increase their demand for healthcare and skilled workers.

This commitment came after the enforcement of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) in January this year.

An effort to raise awareness on the benefit of the said agreement were made by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), through a series of seminar there held last week.

The agreement states that up to 100 Filipino nurses will be allowed by New Zealand to work there as registered nurses at any one time for a period of three years. They will be given working visas while they are undergoing the required bridging courses and exam.

Up to 20 Philippine farm managers and 20 Philippine engineering professionals will also be allowed to enter the country at any one time for a period of three years.

Andrew Matheson, New Zealand Ambassador to the Philippines, disclosed that the New Zealand government has also agreed to work with the Philippines to help develop the local dairy industry, an industry that currently supplies only about one percent of this country’s demand.

A negotiation for a reciprocal working holiday scheme open to up to 100 citizens of each country may also be entered into between New Zealand and the Philippines, allowing young people to stay for up to a year and work to support their extended vacation.

Subject to a certain condition, Matheson also said New Zealand would allow entry of independent professional service suppliers for up to one year, and entry of business visitors, installers or servicers for up to three months in any calendar year.

“The trade negotiators have done their jobs and it is now up to businesses to take advantage of this agreement and let the benefits of the AANZFTA flow through to businesses and consumers,” said Matheson.

More employment opportunities in Taiwan await Filipino jobseekers, the Philippine Star reported today.

In its business page, the local newspaper said that according to local recruiters, there are at least 30,000 jobs awaiting Filipino workers in Taiwan.

Pilipino Manpower Association of Taiwan, Inc. (PILMAT) president Jackson Gan said that factories in Taiwan are still in dire need of Filipinos and other foreign workers.

“Companies in Taiwan continue to hire workers and we have thousands of job orders that are yet to be filled up until this time,” Gan said, adding that  Taiwan has bounced back from last year’s financial crisis and is hiring more workers than in past years.

He said, however, that they are having difficulty recruiting skilled workers to fill up the vacancies because of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) secretary-general’s warning that “the forging of an economic cooperation agreement between Taiwan and China would adversely affect the employment of OFWs.”

Gan stressed that NEDA’s fear is baseless since Taiwanese employers still prefer Filipinos compared to other workers from other countries.

He said that while Taiwan hires other nationalities like Vietnamese and Indonesians, overseas Filipino workers still have the advantage because Filipinos can speak the English language unlike other nationalities. He also noted that Taiwan hires an average of 40,000 Filipino workers, including factory workers and caregivers, annually.

Gan stressed “NEDA is sounding an alarm without basis that could jeopardize the country’s economic stability. Its warning that thousands of OFWs may lose jobs is far-fetched.”

The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines continues to grow. In fact, the growth of the BPO sector is said to be unstoppable as it is expected to accelerate in the first half, with many companies committing to expand faster that expected.

In the report from Inquirer, executive director of the Business Process Association of Philippines (BPAP) Gillian Joyce Virata said the BPO industry’s recovery from the economic slump would be “very steep” in the first semester, as existing players scramble to expand their workforce.

“People are really ramping up. There are recruitments left and right, so we’re seeing a very steep recovery in the first half. The growth will taper off by 2011,” she said.

And this is not limited in the voice services. Virata said companies were also hiring more people to do back-office work and higher-value services.

Likewise, the growth is of the industry will go beyond the third-party service providers, or BPO firms engaged in the business of servicing different companies’ various outsourcing needs. Captives, or BPO firms performing dedicated services for one company alone, were likewise ramping up.

Australian firms are planning to outsource to the country, while the banking sector are also seriously considering the outsourcing option. Interest in the Philippine BPO sector was also moving beyond voice and leaning more toward higher-value services.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, through its president Richard Mills, noted that the Philippines is now ready to take on higher-value jobs, as it has proven itself as a premier destination for voice services.

Because of the continuous growth of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines, BPO firm StarTek Inc. plans to hire 1,000 people as it aims to fill up seats at its facility in Ortigas area which has a 2,100-seat capacity.

Rod Spires, who was appointed to lead the operations at the new site of StarTek located at the Eton Cyberpod Corinthian business center, said it will be operational by the third quarter. It is just across the Robinsons Galleria mall.

The company’s first site in Makati City is expected to fill up it’s 1,100-seat facility soon.

The new facility, according to Spires, will seat over 2,100 agents, and so they currently on recruiting for over 1,000 new employee positions to meet their existing demand.

StarTek president and chief executive Larry Jones said the company’s investment in its second site would cost around $8 million.

The BPO firm currently maintains around 9,000 seats in over 20 sites in the United States, Costa Rica, Canada and the Philippines. It provides high-value voice and non-voice services to its clients.

Iloilo City is one of the city identified as the Next Wave Cities (NWC) for business process outsourcing (BPO) firms by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) because of its attractive power, telecommunications, commercial, sea and airport infrastructure and it offers one of the lowest rental, power and average base pay rates in the country.

Taking the cue from the BPAP, Ayala Land, Inc. signed a 35-year lease agreement with the Pison Group. This agreement would see Ayala to develop a two-hectare property located at Riverside Boardwalk in Smallville, Barangay San Rafael, Mandurriao, Iloilo City.

The investment of Ayala in Iloilo City would see the rise of three BPO facilities with a total of 19,000 square meters of gross leasable area (GLA).

The initial phase of the construction, which is scheduled to start by the second quarter of this year, involves the construction of the first building with approximately 9,500 square meters of GLA. The target date of completion is the first quarter of 2011.

Ayala Land Businesscapes, the office real estate solutions arm of the Ayala Land, will develop this BPO facility which would the biggest in Iloilo to date. The project is also expected to generate about 8,000 jobs in the city.

The investment is part of the Ayala group’s goal of expanding into, developing and redeveloping in strategic areas within attractive growth centers across the country.

Ayala Land Businesscapes is at the forefront of providing a complete line of office real estate solutions in the most strategic sites that are developed according to world-class standards and complemented by preferred amenities and the most reliable facilities management services.

The country continues to become an attractive place to invest, especially in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, because of the availability of qualified workforce and quality service areas.

The ingredients that motivate Infosys BPO Ltd. to draw up plans to expand its presence in the country. The Philippine expansion of Infosys includes opening up three more new BPO sites here.

Visiting Infosys chief operating officer Ritesh Idnani said the company is very bullish about the Philippines and that they will continue to invest in the next few years.

Philippines operations currently accounts for five to six percent of the company’s entire revenues, but Idnani said they expect it to grow to eight to 10 percent in 18 to 24 months. They also expect a 100 percent growth in revenues by the end of its fiscal year ending March 201o.

The plan expansion would create additional job opportunities for more Filipinos as disclosed by Infosys delivery center head for the Philippines Madhusudan Menon. He said they would be creating an additional 2,000 local jobs this year.

They are looking at two properties in Quezon City and one in Clark, Pampanga for their next site in the country. At present, Infosys’ 1,100-seat center is located at Fort Bonifcio, Taguig and currently employs around 650 personnel.

Another business process outsourcing (BPO) firm opened in the Philippines which would provide more employment opportunities for Filipinos. Australia-based Salmat has put up an 800-seat facility at McKinley Hill in Taguig City, the company’s first call center in country and also it’s first major investment outside Australia.

The new call center company is not really new in the country, as they have been operating in the Philippines since 1996. Although Salmat general manager of strategy Philip Hadcroft said they were just doing mostly transactional service which served only the Philippine market.

Their new facility, Hadcroft said, marked their expansion into higher-value sercies, as well as their foray into international markets for its Philippines operations.

Their service center in McKinley Hill has been operating for the last five months, as they moved from transactional services to true IT-driven services. They employ 100 personnel at present, but Hadcroft said they plan to hire more employees to grow to 800 over the next three years.

Salmat Philippines’ facilty would be serving the company’s accounts from Australia and New Zealand, split evenly between voices and non-voice services. It will also extend existing statement processing services to call center, computer programming, Web content management, data entry, and a range of IT-enabled services.

Salmat is listed in the Australian Stock Excahge and currently employs more than 7,000 personnel across Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

The Philippines is still a favorite site for business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, as another US firm sets up business in the country which will provide more job opportunities for Filipinos.

Cybernet-Slash Support (CSS) recently opened its 1,000 seat call center facility in Taguig, it’s first in the country. It currently employs 400 people, but it plans to hire 2,000 local employees this year.

The new call center will be used for the company’s outbound sales, technology and other integrated BPO services for clients in North America.

The company said that the new site and its plan of hiring more employees this year is in line with its aspiration to emerge as strong player in the Philippine’s BPO space.

CSS’s chief executive Nick Sharma acknowledges that the country has become one of the key global hubs for the BPO industry. He said they were lured in by the Philippine’s “highly conducive” business atmosphere and the vast pool of talents of experienced BPO professionals.

“We felt this is the most opportune time to expand our capabilities in the Philippines and extend our portfolio of superior, effective support services to customers,” he added.

CSS has earmarked around $15 million to develop its business in the Philippines. Sharma said that in three to four years time, it would be the biggest of their facility.

He said the company has committed around $15 million to develop its business in the Philippines, which in three to four years time would be the CSS’s biggest facility.

CSS is based in San Jose, California and employs more than 4,000 people in all of its global operations centers in India, the US, Poland and now, in the Philippines.

Sharma said they plan to employ mostly computer-related or engineering graduates who will be expected to provide technical and customer support for their clients in the information technology, retail and healthcare sectors.

Some of CSS’s big clients include American telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent and tech firm Sun Microsystems & Blackboard Inc.