NEWSFLASH
PINOY I.T. MANPOWER ATTRACTS FOREIGN COMPANIES
Makati City, Aug. 28, 2000 - Top global companies are attracted to put up their back-office operations in the Philippines because of competitive salaries and the continued supply of a highly qualified Filipino workforce in information technology (IT).
This was disclosed by Augusto Lagman, chief executive officer of Systems Standards, Inc., during a briefing for multinationals.
Lagman said a programmer with experience of one to two years gets a local salary rates from $250 to $500 a month. This climbs to about $950 to $1,150 for programmers with 10 years of experience.
A project manager with a year of experience earns about $700 to $825 a month; with six to nine years of experience, his monthly rate varies between $1,150 and $1,875.
Salary levels for IT manpower are reasonable even if deployed to the United States on short-term basis.
Several foreign companies send some Filipino workers and software professionals abroad on temporary US visas to familiarize themselves with what is to be achieved by a software or computer program.
A programmer with an experience of one to two years assigned on contract in the US gets about $1,600 to $2,800 a month. The range for a programmer with a decade of experience is between $3,700 to $5,700 monthly.
A project manager who is temporarily assigned abroad rates $3,600 to $5,700 a month if he has one to two years of experience; and $6,000 to $8,500 a month if he has six to nine years of experience.
Lagman said that foreign companies who locate IT operations here are assured of highly productive IT manpower due to a bridging program between industry and schools. This is net of the brainpower that is recruited by headhunters who place jobs for Filipino IT workers and software professionals in the United States, he said.
Under the bridging program, private companies pledge to hire individuals who undergo training with funds coming from the government through the Commission on Higher Education.
The Visual Center for Technology Institute in Information Technology also trains IT professionals in increasing numbers every year within the next five years.
The target is 10,000 trained IT professionals on the fifth year and every year thereafter. VCTI-IT is now going through the first phase of this project with its Training the Trainors Program.
He said that in the wake of the internet/e-commerce revolution, the government, in partnership with Intel and Microsoft, has started to set up computer laboratories in 1,000 public secondary schools all over the country.
Among global companies with backroom operations in the Philippines are American Online, Barnes and Noble, people Support, Caltex Corp., Parsons, Procter & Gamble, Citibank, Andersen Consulting, Chiyoda Corp., Flour Daniel, Bechtel, Sumitomo Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Some of the multinational IT companies that have set up operations in the Philippines are Oracle, Midas Kapiti, James Martin & Company, Pricewaterhouse, KMMG, and DeLoitte & Touche.
Foreign companies have four options to engage a Filipino workforce, he said: set up their own operations, subcontract some of their projects to any of the 8,000 Filipino companies accepting outsourcing jobs, enter into a joint venture agreement with a Filipino partner or hire Filipino IT workers directly.
© Copyright, 2000 by PHILIPPINE
HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
All rights reserved