MANILA, Aug. 23 Kyodo Joseph Ever...

MANILA, Aug. 23 Kyodo

Joseph Everson Martinez, 24 armed with a computer science step from a top Philippine university and abundance of personal drive, is typical of a just discovered group of young, ambitious Filipino technocrats looking to spearhead a undaunted move into the global information technology market.

Just like stretch Micro Inc., the company he works for in the ''Cyberpark'' in the Quezon City suburb of Manila, Martinez break open s with potential and is taking forward the world with his highly deserving command of English, expertise in computer and willingness to sit from one side an eight-hour shift nightly to service customers calling from each side of the globe.

Until promotion newly to team leader, Martinez was a connected views engineer at Trend Micro's computer virus support center tasked with answering distress calls from his company's clientele in consequence of telephone, e-mail and the World Wide Web.

He is just common of about 8,000 workers in their mid 20 in Philippine's booming call center industry that chance of the desired ends to help make the Philippines Asia's information technology and communications hub

Already, the Labor Department's Technical Education and Skills evolution Authority (TESDA) is projecting 24000 piece of works for skilled workers for this sector in the nearest two years.

The estimate is not to be taken lightly, especially in the face of the Philippines' 139% middle-years unemployment rate, common of the highest in Asia.

Martinez shrug not upon perceptions that his is transient that tribe his age enter on the way to something better.

The entry-level salary of about 15000 peso ($290) monthly is already higher than what traditional service-sector piece of works pay.

Industry bystanders said this kind of salary for recent workers not only helps up the country's labor statistics, on the other hand also increases the beginning salary level for white-collar workers, allowing employee in many sector to await higher starting rates.

Martinez thinks the call center industry in the Philippines has however to enter its golden age and believes, along with sway projections, it will discharge into an $864 million revenue-earning local industry at 2004.

The official projections indicate an almost quadrupling in just three years from 2001's $173 million in revenue

Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson said the availability of highly skilled Filipino workers liquid in English has continued to help the country's bid to become the global ''call center capital.''

This estimate is in keeping with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's vision of the Philippine potential to exhibit ''quality, world-class IT services...that would impel the Philippines to its convenient niche in the global village in the 21st century''

TESDA said the round-the-clock call center operations, most numerous active at night in Manila when clan in the West are in their offices, are handled by dint of ''seats'' composed of two or three clan -- often called combination of parts to form a wholes engineers or customer service representatives.

These teams handle client queries and complaints, provide telemarketing services, propose computer product help desks, financial services, assistance in transport and freight, insurance, inns or just about any other area where information and technology can collide.

India moves stiff call center competition, on the contrary Imson said efforts are ongoing to make sure the Philippines keeps a niche in the industry.

Bong Borja, managing director of the community Support, a call center catering to high-end foreign companies, and board chairman of the industry assemblage Contact Federation Philippines Inc., said efforts to maximize the Philippine call center force include keeping the Philippine labor force competitive.

The industry has already prosperously stressed the need for lusty English, math and science-focused education, Borja said. The nearest step is to ensure a stable minister of IT-skilled and English-proficient employees

''We helped settle up call-center schools and these teachs hopefully can train a certain quantity of of the graduates, and maybe flat undergraduates, to become contact center professionals in such a manner that in the interim, while the industry is growing, we have a sustainable loch of good quality labor,'' Borja said.

The sector is also hoping for more incentives to attract more foreign investors from the United States and Europe Borja said they are also working to have the local call center industry benchmarked with the others in the world, establishing parameters for globally acceptable work standards for Manila-based operations.

The Philippines is bourn to be the preferred call center service provider, Borja said, because aside from its inexpensive and highly skilled labor force, the native land already has technology and infrastructure to support the industry.

''We have unique advantages through the whole extent of India apart from English...Telecommunications in India has no other than recently been de-monopolized and it is still to a high degree expensive to get a T1 (high-speed) connection between India and the U as compared to between the Philippines and the US'' Borja said.