MANILA, Philippines — More jobs are up for grabs in the local business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry despite the global economic slump, according to a leading call-center company.

Marife Zamora, Convergys vice president and country manager, said demand for BPOs in the Philippines continues to rise as Filipino call-center agents are known for their proficiency in English and for their good work ethic.

“2009 is a banner year for us. We have opened five new centers and we know we will overachieve our forecast of 20,000 employees by December. We believe next year will be another great year for us. Business has really been burgeoning,” Zamora said Thursday as Convergys opened its 12th and latest call center site at Glorietta 5 mall in Makati City.

“It’s really a testament to the quality of delivery of people here in the Philippines. Filipinos are really a talented lot,” she said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was the guest of honor at the opening of the Glorietta 5 site, Convergys’ largest call center facility in the world, making Convergys the largest BPO company in the country in terms of employee headcount.

According to Zamora, local BPO firms will remain highly dependent on call center services, or so-called voice services, despite the global shift toward higher-value added “non-voice” services.

Call center services account for the bulk of BPO services in the country but typically require less-skilled workers for which clients pay less.

By contrast, India, the global industry leader, has developed a deep pool of non-voice workers that specialize in providing highly technical services like accounting, engineering, programming and design services, among others.

Convergys’ forte

Asked whether Convergys would join the industry shift toward higher-value added services, Zamora said the firm’s forte continues to be in the field of “customer management services” (CMS), which are mainly call center operations.

“What we plan to do is strengthen our CMS. That’s where the Philippines holds a leadership position,” she said.

She said 90 percent of the company’s employees are involved in call center operations, while only 10 percent are involved in “back office” services like accounts receivable management.

Carl Handy, Convergys senior vice president for human resources, said the demand for call center agents will remain strong, despite industry predictions of a lessening dependence on them with the advent of greater automation.

“At the end of the day, there will always be [call center] agents. We don’t see agents going away in the foreseeable future,” he said.

The company’s second site on Ayala Avenue and the 12th in the country, the Glorietta 5 center was started in 2003 and began operating in April. Its other sites are in Manila, Cebu, Bacolod and Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Attached to shopping center

This is the first Convergys site that is attached to a shopping complex. The facility has a total floor area of 17,000 square meters. It has 2,041 seats which could be ramped up to 3,500 to accommodate future client demand.

With the new facility, Convergys said it now employs 17,500 BPO workers in the country, making it the largest call center employer in the Philippines.

It will soon add another 300 seats at its UP-Ayala Land TechnoHub site in Quezon City, and inaugurate a 300-seat site in San Lazaro, Manila, early next year.

Convergys clients include US-based firms involved in financial services and banking, telecommunications, information technology, pharmaceuticals, and the retail and e-commerce sectors.

Equal opportunity employer

Zamora said the launch of the 12th Convergys site also indicated that the company’s clients from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia preferred the Philippines over other countries like India, its closest competitor in the BPO industry.

She said Convergys is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate with regard to age, gender, religion and physical disability.

“So if you have friends and relatives who need a job and have a good command of English and are computer-savvy, we’re hiring,” she said.