MAKATI CITY, Philippines--US outsourcing firm Startek Inc. said it will hire call center agents to fill up 1,100 seats in the company’s newly inaugurated facility in Makati, an executive said.

“It makes great sense to invest in the Philippines’ BPO industry set to grow by 35 percent this year according to BPO industry groups CICT [Commission on Information and Communications Technology] and BPAP [Business Processing Association of the Philippines]. We want to be part of that growth,” said Larry Jones, Startek president and CEO, during a briefing.

Startek opened the Makati hub in September with 50 seats. The Makati facility is Startek’s first facility outside the United States, where 19 of its 500-seat centers are located.

Jones said the country’s rich pool of highly educated English speakers, reliable and redundant communications and cost-effective operations led Startek to venture in Manila for its first offshore operations.

Currently, the company’s operations is divided equally between voice and non-voice outsourcing services. The company offers customer care, sales support, complex, accounts receivable management, technical support and provisioning services to Fortune 1,000 US corporations.

Jones said they plan to have a 70-percent voice and 30-percent non-voice services breakdown soon.

Amid the looming global financial crisis, Jones said the outlook for Startek’s future looks bright.

With regard to the 12 percent average attrition rate in the Philippines, ranging up to 40 percent in voice services and up to 15 percent in non-voice operations, Jones said the company’s culture and employee programs offer career path, not just jobs.

Meanwhile, BPAP CEO Oscar Sañez and CICT chairman Anthony Roxas-Chua III agreed that the choice of Startek to put up a Manila office speaks of the country’s quality of labor force.

The BPAP and CICT have teamed up to push education and training development for agents, as well as marketing the Philippines as better outsourcing alternative over other countries.

Jones said outsourcing offers firms an alternative to achieve high quality service at lower operation costs compared with in-house and inshore operations.

He said the current economic meltdown would reverse this condition and even bodes well for outsourcing firms like Startek.

Jones said the company plans to look up other cities and provinces in the second half for its expansion in the country.

The company is eyeing Cebu as location of its new office. Startek also plans to find other locations near its Makati office.

Starteks’ BPO center occupies three floors of the SM Cyberone Building and has a total floor area of 7,200 square meters.

The 21-year-old firm started in the product packaging sector and ventured into outsourcing with encouragements from former clients Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.