The Philippines has a wide range of IT organizations that provide onshore and offshore outsourcing services that are similar to some other Far Eastern, Eastern European and South American countries. Of late, the Philippines has set its sights on becoming a global technology hub and has done a superb job of elevating its rankings in the "Knowledge Jobs" to a competitive level.

With the growing trend of outsourcing activities to reduce costs and increase productivity such as software development, IT-enabled services and business process outsourcing, the Philippines has a big opportunity to fill in the need for such services worldwide. Thus, the Philippines can emerge as a niche player for certain outsourcing services considering its distinct advantages over other Far Eastern offshore provider countries, among which are:

o Abundance and Quality of Knowledge Workers

o #3 in Knowledge Jobs--META Group 2001 Report (from 49 countries)

Availability of Senior Management
Availability of IT Workers
Number of Qualified Engineers

o #4 in Asia in Labor Quality– US Based META Group

o Over 290,000 IT Labor Pool

o 350,000 graduates every year

o 94% Literacy rate

o 1,739 Registered Companies in IT

o Low Turn Over (less than 15%)
   cost savings (e.g., recruiting, training and productivity)
   and retained organizational knowledge

o Large number of Training Facilities (86 Universities and Colleges offering 
   Computer Science and Engineering Courses)

o 643 IT Schools and 400 Vocational-Technical Schools with annual enrollment  
   of close to 100,000

o Best in Asia in Overall Quality of Expatriate Life --Political Risk
   Consultancy, Ltd. (PERC) of Hong Kong, 3rd in All Countries Surveyed

o Solid Power and Telecommunications Infrastructure (Gartner 2002)

o Redundant international connectivity including fiber optic cable and satellite 
   communication

o Bandwidth costs have declined by 70% during the past four years