Philippine Call Centers' Dark Future

If one may think of the call center being around for decades more, think again! The worst case scenario is already starting to happen. As I read one the alerts I set up on my email address for Google to bring me "call center news" anywhere, it troubled me to find out that there might be a movement to bring back outsourced jobs to the US job market. There's a lot of reasons why this movement might gain ground and support from the U.S.A. which is the main source of outsourced jobs in the world. For one, Americans are a patriotic bunch. When sector of their society is continually being repressed, it only takes one sharp tongued media personality, celebrity, politician or advocacy group to rally a huge majority of their citizenry to support bringing back jobs to the U.S. mainland.

Good news for them, bad news for outsourcing for us which is just beginning to mature in the Philippines. The way I see this might be happening going to be out of our hands. Something we cannot fight. Why? Because it will not be a question of call quality or cost-effectiveness or for redundancy anymore. It is going to be a matter of job security for the American people. If there is enough people in the U.S. that would notice that outsourcing countries like India and the Philippines are taking away some people's livelihood and if this gains enough support, no matter how good we are at the things we do in our jobs, we are still going to lose the battle of keeping call centers here in the country. Think in the lines of how the support for the withdrawal of troops in Iraq has finally succeeded recently. Even the President buckled in to clamor to bring home their troops stationed in Iraq. For outsourcing it's going to be a different fight. The end of the call center industry will begin if we see ads from companies that the support "keeping jobs for the Americans" or start to brand their company as "US-labor market friendly". Not the best slogan from me but I hope you get the idea. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure the Americans would not mind paying a little bit more as long as they know by doing so they are helping their own people keep the jobs they need to support their families. That's the clincher for us.

It might not be a total loss for us here in the call centers. But if this scenario happens, even if the call centers don't totally withdraw for their operations in the Philippines, there would still be effects on our jobs here. For example, jobs availability would be less and more competitive. Also there's always a possibility of lay-off for current call center employees. Salaries and salary offers would not be as competitive as it is now. There's always that economic effects for the country if this sunshine industry suddenly comes to a halt.

A very bleak future indeed. But one that has not happened yet. Hopefully we don't head on to that direction.

Here the news article that got me thinking of this possibility:
AT&T brings Outsourced jobs to the U.S Arkansas Call Center

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Posted in: CallCenter Issues