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US Suspends Contact Center Controversial Outsourcing Training Program

By Amanda Ciccatelli, TMCnet Web Editor

The U.S. Agency for International Development has suspended funding for a program in which Filipino youth were trained to work in offshore, English language contact centers that outsource to U.S. companies. Lawmakers criticized the program because they believe it posed a threat to American call center workers.

Information Week reported that Congressman Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.). and fellow Congressman Walter Jones (R-N.C.) on Friday wrote to USAID administrator Rajiv Shah to complain about the program, known as JEEP (Job Enabling English Proficiency). JEEP used USAID funds to train students in the Philippines troubled Mindanao region, which has seen unrest by Muslim activists, to work in call centers.

With 23,000 Filipino students enrolled in the program, JEEP is part of a larger USAID initiative in the Philippines, known as Growth and Equity in Mindanao (GEM (News - Alert)), on which the agency is spending about $100 million per year. JEEP is classroom-based, and focuses on the specialized English skills required by employers in several areas of study.

"In response to the concerns you have raised, the Agency is suspending its participation in the English language training project in Mindanao pending further review of the facts," said USAID deputy assistant administrator Barbara Feinstein, in a letter Monday to Bishop.

Feinstein said JEEP was created to help students in the region integrate into Filipino society. She explained that the program’s intent is to enable youth to make productive contributions to society, and to reduce alienation that may make them vulnerable to the influence of extremism.

Bishop told Information Week that USAID must find ways to assist developing regions without compromising the jobs of U.S. call center workers.

“We have a serious jobs deficit in this country and the fact that we would spend U.S. taxpayer dollars to prepare foreign nationals to take over jobs that can easily be done by Americans is shocking" he said.

AT&T, Expedia (News - Alert), and JPMorgan Chase are among the U.S. companies to have outsourced call center operations to the Philippines. And Bishop added that more than 500,000 call center jobs have moved offshore in the past five years.