US envoy: Jobs policy may affect BPO in PH

NEWLY re-elected President Barack Obama will most likely support legislation that would make business process outsourcing companies in the Philippines less attractive to American companies, US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr. said Wednesday.

Thomas made the remark at a press briefing after he was asked about a “bring jobs home” bill that would give incentives to American companies to bring back jobs, many of which have been outsourced to other countries like the Philippines and India, to the United States.

Although the bill did not pass, Thomas said, the responsibility of Obama was to provide more jobs to Americans, much like President Benigno Aquino III is seeking to increase employment opportunities for Filipinos.

The bring jobs home or “in-sourcing” bill proposed by the Democrats would end tax breaks for American companies that moved jobs overseas. The measure failed to pass in July, however, but remains a cause of concern for BPO companies in the country, now that Obama has been re-elected.

A spokesman for the Labor Department declined to comment on the impact such a bill would have on the BPO industry, saying Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz would address the issue when she returned from official business in Taiwan.

This year, the BPO Association of the Philippines sees the industry generating $13 billion in revenues from a workforce of 764,000. The industry is projected to produce $27-billion in revenues and directly engage some 1.3 million Filipino workers by 2016. –Sara Susanne D. Fabunan, Manila Standard Today