While Philippine-based contact centers lose agents regularly, the attrition rate is still manageable, said a PeopleSupport Inc. official during the inauguration of the company?s newly built five-story facility in Makati last week. The occasion also marked the company?s fifth year in the country.

In a briefing with the press, Rozl Ricafrente, vice president for Global Human Resources at PeopleSupport said that the reported total industry attrition rate of 35 percent a year is nothing to worry about and that it is still manageable. She added that the attrition rate in the industry cannot be compared to the rate of other industries, say with banks, especially given the night shifts and workload. ?The Philippines is actually faring better than India,? she said.

The new PeopleSupport Center can hold about 4,000 employees and about 3,300 call center seats, so the company is continuously hiring agents for the roughly 28 accounts they have right now. The company admits, however, that, as seen in the entire contact center industry, hiring agents has gotten a bit difficult right now but the schools are still a good source of fresh graduates, said Ricafrente. The company also still gets applicants coming from other industries who want to try working for the ?sunshine industry of the country?, she added.

Bong Borja, PeopleSupport president, shared that in 2001, the company had only 40 employees working in a very small room with very limited amenities. Today this number has grown in five years to about 4,000 employees working in separate facilities in Metro Manila and in Cebu.

Although PeopleSupport still maintains its headquarters in Los Angeles, all of the company?s operations are now in the Philippines, becoming the first NASDAQ-registered U.S. offshore outsourcing company to do so.

With the completion of the firm?s new building, operations in the Philam Life and Export Bank buildings in Makati City have been consolidated in the new office. PeopleSupport, however, will still maintain its operations in the Robinsons Summit Building, also in Makati, to have some room for expansion.