The Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry has asked the City of Dumaguete to allocate funds to help train call center agents.

Dumaguete City Councilor, Manuel “Chiquiting” Sagarbarria, president of the Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NOCCI), said they have asked the city to help train call center agents because there is a need for more call center agents in the City.

Qualfon, a Mexican call center which operates in Cebu, is expanding to Dumaguete in June. “They are preparing to hire about 1,500 call center agents,” Sagarbarria said, after he was briefed about the company’s profile. Sagarbarria said that under their proposal, the City will give the money to Technical Skills Development Authority (TESDA), which will take care of the training. Sagarbarria, however, said they did not specify an amount. “The amount is up to the mayor; we just passed the resolution to allocate funds,” he said.

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry employs about 2,000 people in Negros Oriental and has been pumping P20 million into the Dumaguete Economy each month through salaries of their workers alone. This is one of the reasons why, Sagarbarria said, the Dumaguete economy is growing at an average of 30 percent a year, which is much higher than the national growth rate.