The IT-Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), the umbrella group of IT and business process management firms operating in the country, has raised alarm bells on what it calls “severe talent crisis” in the country. IBPAP President Jack O. Madrid raised the “talent crisis” issue during a meeting with PEZA Director General Tereso O. Panga and his team last Monday, March 27, to discuss areas for active collaboration and strategic alliance for the creation of plans on effective investment attraction and facilitation in line with the goals of PEZA, the industry, and the whole government. “We have a severe talent demand-supply gap… We need to address our talent crisis. [Surely, we are a country with rich pool of talent and] the result of that is many people want to continue to invest [in the Philippines]. But increasingly, the challenge is not the cost—it’s the people,” explained Madrid. He added, “We now live in a world where being able to work remotely is important. It’s also the reason of people who are overconcentrated in the Philippines, they are also beginning to diversify outside. But for many [IBPAP] members, we’re still their main handler, but the main message here is the mismatch and the supply and demand of talent.” Panga shared that PEZA is cooperating with the ongoing initiative of USAID to ready the Filipino workforce in preparation for the Industry 4.0. “We are involving all our locators in the USAID survey and once this is done, we can work together with other stakeholders to invest in workforce training and institutional capacity building to narrow the jobs gap and address the critical skills shortage. We want to have the same parallel track for the IT industry,” said the PEZA chief. Aside from the talent crisis issues, other industry concerns include infrastructure and the implementation of the work-from-home. Panga acknowledged that ITBPM is an  indispensable industry in help the economy grow and achieve the goal of creating more jobs. Both parties agreed the need to gear up for a strategic and industry-led partnership in attracting foreign direct investments in the country, which is an essential tool for the country’s growth and development. DG Panga expressed, “We really want to thank IBPAP and the IT industry for all the support to PEZA and huge contributions to the country’s local and national development. Indeed, the IT is an “Two of our goals are aligned with each other. Just like PEZA, we have the responsibility for delivering employment and export service revenues to the country,” said Panga. As of 2022, there are a total of 1,582 IT-BPM industry activities registered in PEZA which generated a total of P337.593 billion investments, and 1,095,622 direct jobs.  In 2022 alone, the IT-BPO sector has contributed about $17.005 billion exports. For Q1 2023, PEZA has approved a total of six projects from the IT sector which is expected to bring P105.546 million investments, $8.932 million exports, and 624 direct jobs. Madrid is also eyeing more IT park developers and IT locator companies to expand operations in the provinces which constitute 40 percent of current total IT investments nationwide, and with Metro Manila still registering an annual uptake of 500,000 sqm of office spaces.