Government and private sector specialists recently told business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to invest in 14 localities outside Metro Manila and Cebu that have the infrastructure and talent pool to meet the industry’s growing demands.

During the 8th Global Sourcing Conference held in Manila that ended Tuesday, the Department of Trade and Industry and the outsourcing advisory firm Tholons identified these growth areas in a just-completed study.

Although the study dubbed the new locations as the “next wave cities,” they include a province and two municipalities. The growth areas are the cities of Bacolod, Baguio, Batangas, Cagayan de Oro, Clark/Angeles, Davao, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Legaspi, Lipa, and Sta. Rosa; the municipalities of Bacoor in Cavite and of Cainta in Rizal; and the province of Camarines Sur.

There are existing BPO investments in these locations.

The study also listed the localities where there are no BPO investments yet, but are ready to accommodate them. These are the province of Leyte and the cities of Cabanatuan, Dagupan, Subic-Olongapo, General Santos, and Urdaneta.

Oscar Sañez, chief executive officer of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, said these locations have a huge number of graduates that can supply the growing demand for workers in the industry.

The BPO industry, which is targeting a US$7-billion revenue this year, will be needing 600,000 additional workers in the years toward 2010. The industry currently has a workforce of 300,000.

Citing data from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Secretary Ray Anthony Chua III of the Commission on Information and Communication Technology said more than 70 percent of the graduates are living outside Metro Manila, which is the leading outsourcing hub in the country.

He said, however, that at present 80 percent of jobs in the outsourcing sector are concentrated in Metro Manila.

The cities identified by the Tholons and DTI study were judged based on two criteria: an outsourcing and offshoring (O&O) score card and inputs from information technology (ICT) councils.

The O&O scorecard takes into account four criteria: infrastructure, talent pool, business environment, and cost of doing business.

Chua said that aside from huge supply of talents, the locations cited in the study have low median basic pay per month than established cities like Manila and Cebu. The basic pay per month for an entry-level worker in Manila, for instance, is 20 percent higher than what an entry-level employee in Bacolod and Baguio receives.

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