Filipino Nurses Support Group
Letter to the Editor

Re: Call centres face increased competition, Wendy Leung, 5 July 2006

July 6, 2006

Dear Vancouver Sun Editor:

Canadians should be critical of the 7,000 to 9,000 call-centre jobs expected to move to countries like India and the Philippines in the next 5 years to cut their operation costs. We recently saw a major North American grocery store not only cut their Canadian-based information technology personnel, but also had them train the cheaper workers in the Philippines before losing their jobs.

Many call centre jobs will go to Philippine graduates in engineering, computer science, and nursing because they lack jobs in their professional fields. Those who get accepted tend to come from the middle
to upper classes with access to “good English training”. However, even for these lucky few, the minimum daily wage does not meet half of the daily cost of living for a typical Filipino family. So many professional graduates go abroad in the hope for a better life.

As thousands of Canadian workers can expect to lose their jobs to cheaper 3rd World workers under globalization, over 3,000 Filipinos leave the Philippines daily for countries like Canada to become live-in
nannies and maids. The unfortunate result is that they are pitted against each other. Who then really benefits?

Sheila Farrales
Filipino Nurses Support Group