The Business-Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in the country could take a serious hit in a Donald Trump presidency in the United States.
According to Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms Executive Director Ramon Casiple, Trump made it clear during the US election campaign about his intention to bring back jobs that were outsourced by American companies outside of their country.
Yesterday Trump won the presidential race by besting Democratic party candidate Hillary Clinton.
“I’m going to bring jobs back and I’ll start bringing them back very fast,” said Trump during a Republican debate last February.
This would potentially mean pullouts of BPOs in the Philippines which has provided about 70% revenue of the industry to the more than a million Filipino BPO employees.
“He was on record na ’yung mga jobs na binigay supposedly ng democrats outside of the US, ipababalik nya. So may active policy na pauwiin,” said Casiple.
Also set to take a hit, Casiple surmised, are Filipino immigrants even those who have been legally working in the US.
Immigration issue has been a signature subject of Trump’s campaign and has vowed to instill migration bans as well as trade protectionism under his leadership.
“In both ways ’pag hindi tayo naka-cope to provide economic growth in terms of job creation, problema yan kasi ang bulk ng Filipinos working abroad ay nasa US,” said Casiple.
Filipinos working in the US were major contributors in last year’s $8.04 billion remittances. In 2015, it was estimated that there were four million Filipinos in the US and sent 31.22% of the total worker remittance that year.
Casiple meantime does not see a definitive personal battle between Trump and president Duterte despite Duterte’s previous attack on the incoming US leader whom the Philippine chief executive once described as ‘bigot’.
“Kasi nga parehong out-of-the-box approach itong mga leader na it they may enter into a new modus vivendi or agreement on the Philippine-US relationships,” said Casiple “Dahil nga out-of-the-box sila, you cannot be sure na hindi sila magkaka-intindihan later. We are living in very interesting times not only in the Philippines, the United States but also globally.” (DENNIS PRINCIPE)