This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 8, April 3-9, 2005
Call Centers: Boon or Bane
for New Graduates? With
the country’s high unemployment rate, new graduates and other new entrants to
the labor force are grateful for the presence of call centers which take in
thousands of them every week, regardless of the course taken. Concerned voices
however raise the issue of government molding the education system to churn out
graduates suited to the needs of the call center industry. BY
AVA DANLOG Under the subject Advanced
Communication for International Business or Comm 400 in the University of the
East in Manila, students are taught marketing, finance and public speaking.
Topics such as English proficiency and American geography are tackled. Lara (not her real name), a
graduating engineering student, is taking such a subject. Although completely
unrelated to her course, she took up the communications course as an elective to
equip her with the skills needed for employment after graduation. Ironically, Lara knows she
would most likely end up not practicing her chosen profession. She plans to
apply as a call center agent in Makati right after graduation. Doubting she will
even pass the licensure exams, she knows it would be difficult for her to
compete for the few decent job openings available to inexperienced engineering
graduates like her. In addition, she’s more than happy with the comparatively
high basic salary offered in the call center industry. “Mecca” for new
graduates Alarmingly, more and more
graduating students are looking at call centers as an option for employment.
Regardless of degree taken, thousands of fresh and old graduates are hired by
the call center industry every week. A call center is a
communications-based company which serves as a support system for larger
companies in first world countries like the United States. Call or contact
centers handle customer complaints and inquiries and provide technical support
for a wide array of products and services like electronics, e-mail management,
mortgage, insurance, advertising, telecommunications and even volunteer and
charity work. Basically, the work is to
receive from and make calls to foreign countries. There are two categories of
call centers: inbound and outbound calls. And there are three types of accounts:
telemarketing, customer service and technical support. Telemarketing belongs to
the inbound category. However, customer service centers also engage in upselling,
which means offering or selling services. Debts and the need to lower
cost structures caused by a troubled stock market, unstable economic conditions
and declining expenditure on Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
have made offshoring appealing to U.S. companies. ICT advances have enabled
multinational and transnational corporations to decentralize certain operational
areas like the handling of inbound and outbound calls. Years ago, the Philippines
was unknown in the provision of e-services in the world. However, the improving
technology and the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the
country during the mid-1990s paved the way for the launching of the call center
industry. The Department of Trade and Industry lists at least 37 call center
companies in the country and the number is growing. Major players include
Convergys, PeopleSupport and Etelcare. The Filipinos’ edge Since the industry mainly
caters to markets from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, call
center agents are obliged to acquire the foreign accent and study the geography
and cultural mores of these foreign countries and work on a graveyard shift.
Being the third largest English speaking country in the world and with a high
literacy rate, the Philippines is considered as one of the most competitive call
center destinations in the world. Other factors that make the
country attractive to foreign companies are the cheap class A office spaces,
better power and telecommunications infrastructure, good quality but cheap labor
force and the support the government is all too willing to extend to these
foreign investors. Graduates and even
undergraduates who pass the preliminary exams undergo a six-day English skills
training and product training for three weeks. After which the agent trainee
will be placed on the floor to attend to mock calls for assessment. Agents are
supposed to be able to type at least 25 words per minute. The basic pay for call
center agents ranges from P11,000 (US$200.98 at US$1=PhP54.73) to P13,000 a
month. In ICT Philippines, a call center that operates in the Philippines,
agents enjoy a monthly P2,500 food and transportation allowance and a
performance appraisal bonus amounting to P4,000. Often, they are also offered
spiffs like appliances, cellular phone loads and gift checks to boost the sales
per hour capacity of the employees. For example, whoever first gets five sales
per hour for the night wins a prize. And an agent who hits the target quota
sales gets an additional P11,500 commission plus a 30-50 percent night
differential. All in all, a well-performing agent gets a gross monthly income of
more than P31,000. This, as opposed to the P8,000 entry level salary generally
offered in other sectors. Yet, these are not all.
Call center agents receive benefits like SSS, health insurance, Pag-ibig and
salary loans. It is not a dead-end job either. Agents get the chance to climb
the corporate ladder in just a matter of three months. Some call centers offer
perks like free shuttle rides, free meals and coffee and sleeping rooms and even
karaoke rooms. Most people find the job
easy. According to Weng, a Philosophy graduate and who has been working for a
call center selling mortgage services in Ortigas for 14 months now, “I find the
job easy. When I go home, I go home. I don’t have any paperwork. When I'm in the
office, I work my brains out because I’m already a team leader. But when I get
home, I’m home. I don’t have anything else to do.” “Sunshine industry”
The call center industry is
tagged as the “sunshine industry” by the government because of its massive
expansion, thus generating thousands of employment. It is the fastest growing
sector within the IT software and services industry. It is not only sprouting in
Metro Manila, but in other metropolitan areas as well like Cebu, Baguio, Davao
and Pampanga. With an unemployment rate at 13 percent, the highest in Southeast
Asia, the call center industry is perceived as a rare bright spot in the
country’s ailing economy. Thus, the Arroyo government
is putting high hopes in the ICT-enabled services sector for the development of
the economy. To realize its goal of placing the Philippines in the “call center
map of the world,” the government has designated more than 96 special economic
zones that offer tax breaks and other incentives to foreign investors and is
improving the telecommunications and other basic infrastructure.
The available skilled labor
force however could not catch up with the demand of the industry. Out of the
380,000 graduates produced annually, a mere five percent qualifies as call
center agents. In fact, only three to five percent of applicants are taken in by
the call center industry. What is very alarming is
the government mainstreaming the education system to churn out graduates that
would fit the qualifications needed by the industry. In this regard, the
Technical Education and Skills Authority (TESDA) of the Department of Labor and
Employment has released a scholarship fund for would-be contact center
professionals. Malacañang mandated English as the primary medium of instruction
in both primary and secondary levels, aside from placing more emphasis on Math
and Science as preventive measures. On the tertiary level, a number of schools
all over the country, like UE in Recto, are now offering the subject Advanced
Communication for International Business. As remedial measures,
formal training and certification programs for call centers have already started
in training centers like AHEAD Learning Systems and the Avaya Customer Contact
Training Center (ACCTC) located at the Mapua Institute of Technology. Call
centers like People Support (Phils) Inc. has already started conducting special
classes in the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) on basic contact center
education for graduating students. University of the
Philippines student leader Atom Araullo, himself a graduating student, says that
this move on the part of the government is reflective of the dominance of other
countries in the economic affairs of the country. This tendency is nothing new
since based from history, the government has been mainstreaming the education
system of the country based on the demands of the global market for semi-skilled
workers. Not so bright after all After a deeper analysis,
the exponential growth of the call center does not paint a very bright picture
after all. Although the quality of the Filipino labor force lures in investors,
the undoubtedly more decisive factor would be the cheaper labor cost. While the
salary rate is comparatively higher from the minimum wage popularly offered
nowadays, the practice of developed countries to exploit the cheap labor pool of
underdeveloped countries would eventually lead to lower wages, especially so
since 60 percent of the operational cost of a contact center in the country goes
to labor, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Research also shows
concerns on the health costs for those working the graveyard shifts. According
to Rebecca Stoll, an analyst for US research group Gartner, after touring call
centers in the country, “you can just work at night so long before you burn
out.” This suggests that prolonged call center employment may pose several
health risks for the agents. Most workers are denied to
right to unionize. There is lack of job security and the labor force is not
trained for skills that would benefit the country. At the other end of the line,
agents are often subjected to racial discrimination, harassment and verbal
abuse, and yet obliged to remain unruffled and calm. Weng adds, “Stressful,
especially during the early part. But then I have to learn to detach myself. I
sometimes feel like a robot, I’m not learning anything.” Bubble industry Analysts predict that aside
from facing stiff competition from other countries, the market would soon be
saturated and the industry will burst. This is the reason why mainstreaming the
education system just to cater to the demands of the call center industry would
be a big blow to the economy. According to Melvir Buela,
an undergraduate engineering student from UP Diliman, the education system
should be attuned to what the country really needs. He added that for
undergraduates looking for jobs to save money for the rising tuition rates, call
centers are the best option since the shift and the high pay are beneficial.
However, he does not approve of the brain drain to the semi-skilled call
centers. Araullo says that graduates
flocking to call centers imply that many are finding it harder and harder to
find decent jobs. So instead of putting all the resources into sustaining
the growth of call centers in the country, the government should instead exhaust
all means in localizing industries in order to generate sustainable employment
for the 31 million unemployed Filipinos. Araullo adds that students
should always view call centers as an option until basic reforms are put into
place. “Students should not be ashamed. It’s a decent job. But then they have to
think, be curious and be open to the potential that they themselves would be the
key to in initiating positive changes in the future.” Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Bulatlat