The Labour Department said last Tuesday that Accenture, a US-based outsourcing firm, will be laying off 500 people from its operations in Manila because of the outcome of the worldwide financial downturn. Labour Undersecretary Rosalinda Baldoz said that Accenture Philippines has filed a notice of cutback of about 500 workers at its facilities in Manila.

Accenture is engaged in BPO which includes call centres. It has employed 16,000 people in Manila and Cebu City.  Call centres together with other business process outsourcing firms used English as an official language. BPO became the major industry in the Philippines. Previously, predictions from Industry leaders are stated. According to them, the segment will not be affected by the worldwide financial chaos. The reason is that to be able to save money or cut costs, companies in developed countries will outsource more of their roles abroad. The assertion was made after a systematic review of business operations in the Philippines, according to a spokesman of the company.  Company spokesman, Arnie Alcazar told AFP that they saw a necessity to balance or match the skills of their workers, with the demand coming from their clientele. In January, the redundancy program began and it only influence the IT department. Alcazar added that they will continue to employ skilled people to meet the needs of their BPO clients. [via]