Workers who have been affected or will be affected by lay offs triggered by the global economic crisis can be re-trained so they can be absorbed by the business process outsourcing and information technology industries, outsourcing experts and industry players said.

During the pre-event press conference for the 2009 e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition to be held in February, industry experts said that retrenched workers from the manufacturing sectors are welcome to join the BPO industry as long as they meet the skills needed by the outsourcing firms.

The statement came after news that 1,800 workers of Intel Corp., the world’s largest manufacturer of micro-processors, will lose their jobs as the company is set to shut down its plant in Cavite.

“BPO and IT industry are looking forward to basically absorb them,” said Lauro Vives, chief executive officer of information and communications techonology research firm XMG Asia Pacific.

Vives, however, said that not all workers are suited to jobs in the BPO and IT sector and the government should help them by providing them training.

“Not all of the workers are deemed qualified for the BPO sector,” Vives said. “The government has to create re-skilling programs to put them back to the labor stream.”

Jonathan Luzuriaga, executive director for industry affairs of the Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) said that the BPO industry can create as much as 100,000 jobs every year.

Luzuriaga said that 2009 will still be a strong year for the industry because the industry is “slowly moving up the value chain” by offering higher value services.”

The BPO industry has been considered as one of the sunshine industries but analysts are saying that it will experience a slowdown in its growth as a result of the recession in the United States, where majority of BPO clients are located.

Vives estimated that the industry will grow by 24 percent this year as a result of the financial crisis.

In an interview with abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak last December, Oscar Sanez, chief executive officer of BPAP, said that the industry would grow between 20 to 30 percent for 2009 because the financial crisis would force some companies to re-structure, and to “delay expansions and review their plans.”

The industry has grown by an average of 50 percent from 2005-2007. In 2007, it generated US$4.9 billion revenues and employed around 300,000 workers. (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

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