MANILA - The IT and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry which covers the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, grew in terms of revenues and workforce in 2021, a stakeholder group said Wednesday.

Revenues jumped 10.6 percent to $29.49 billion compared to 2020, the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) said in a statement.

An additional 120,000 full-time employees also joined the sector, which brought the total headcount to 1.44 million or a 9.1 percent growth, it added.

Both the revenue and talent growth surpassed its 2022 recalibrated targets of 1.43 million full-time employees and $29.1 billion in revenues, IBPAP said.

"The double-digit growth validates what we had projected - that 2021 performance was beyond recovery; it marks a resurgence for the Philippine IT-BPM sector," IBPAP president and CEO Jack Madrid said.

"Preserving jobs, driving investments, stimulating countryside development, and creating demand for real-estate-these are the unequivocal contributions of the industry to nation-building," he added.

Madrid said the demand for offshoring and outsourcing would likely spill over into 2022.

"We should not miss out on this opportunity to capture a bigger slice of the global market," Madrid said.

• A fight for the fate of work: As gov't nixes WFH, BPOs say hybrid is the future

SUSTAINING GROWTH

IBPAP said growth could be sustained by several factors, including supply chain resilience in terms of talents, location diversity such as small-scale centers or microsites, and the integration of hybrid wrk models.

The group said 80 percent of Filipino BPO workers expressed preference for hybrid work arrangements.

IBPAP is pushing for a more concrete regulation on hybrid work after the government ordered firms to go back on site by March to continue enjoying tax incentives.

Several firms have secured a letter of authority to allow 30 percent of their employees to work remotely until September.

IBPAP said it has been working with the incumbent and incoming administration to "lay down building blocks for a more comprehensive policy" on hybrid work.

• BPO sector discussing hybrid work arrangement to remain competitive: group

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