A bipartisan group of US legislators is advancing the Keep Call Centers in America Act, a bill designed to discourage American companies from offshoring large portions of their customer support operations. Under the proposal, any company that outsources more than 30 percent of its call center operations outside the United States would be ineligible for federal grants and government-backed loans for up to five years.
For the Philippine BPO industry, the immediate financial threat from this bill is limited. The labor and facility cost savings from outsourcing to the Philippines far outweigh the risk of losing access to federal funding, a concern that is largely irrelevant to multinational corporations, private equity-backed firms, and companies with no federal ties. The math, as analysts note, still strongly favors offshoring.
