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The Philippines’ unemployment rate in October decreases to 8.7% or about 3.8 million jobless Filipinos. This is lower than July’s 10% and April’s all-time high of 17.6%, but still higher than the 5.3% unemployment rate in January before the pandemic began. Double-digit unemployment rates remain in 3 regions: National Capital Region (12.4%), Ilocos Region (11.5%), and CALABARZON (11%). Moreover, despite the number of jobless Filipinos going down, the number of employed people who are still looking for additional jobs remains high.

The Financial Express reports an expected increase in contract staffing in Tier 2 and 3 cities in India with companies becoming more open to their employees working anywhere. The estimated additional number of contract employees to be added by the IT-BPM this year is about 25,000. Now that physical presence in the workplace has become less important, organizations may look to hire not in the top 40 cities but in the next 200 smaller towns, Indian Staffing Federation Lohit Bhatia believes. This presents advantages for IT companies to expand and set up office in small towns and recruit locally.

In the recent Frost Radar™: Asia-Pacific Customer Experience Outsourcing Services Market 2020, Frost & Sullivan has named Teleperformance as the growth and innovation top-performing leader. The business consulting firm noted Teleperformance’s unparalleled footprint and service to brands in the region and around the globe. The outsource company is seen to continuously augment its core competencies of delivery execution through the integration of advanced technology solution capabilities. The CX outsourcing service market in the Asia-Pacific is forecasted to generate a revenue of $42.4 billion by 2025 despite the pandemic. 

There is a growing preference for Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) among corporations and businesses. Outsourcing in-house legal work enables them cost-saving measures and focus on their core competencies while less sensitive, routine work of their legal department are handled in regions were the task can be performed at less cost. Contract management outsourcing is estimated to hold the key shares in this market. The increasing demand for contract management outsourcing is attributed to it having several processes from review and analysis of contracts to quality management.  

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has been holding off the import of smartphones since August. These included the latest Apple iPhone 12, Oppo and Xiaomi smart wearables. The typical 15-day processing of importation paperwork is now taking up to two months to complete. Apple India executives told the BIS that the company will expand its assembly operations in the country but so far there has been no update from this communication.