Philippines to reskill 10,000 BPO workers for AI
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The Philippines government is training 10,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) workers in artificial intelligence (AI) tools and techniques in 2026, as the Department of Labor and Employment works with industry association IBPAP to prepare the sector’s workforce for automation-driven job transformation.
Labor Undersecretary Carmela Torres of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) confirmed the program targets and the industry collaboration framework behind them, describing the initiative as a proactive response to AI-driven job restructuring across the Philippine labor market.
DOLE and IBPAP target AI job transition across the BPO sector
The program is administered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) through enterprise-based training, with the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) providing two years of industry collaboration to define the specific skills and occupations BPO workers need to acquire.
According to a report by Business Mirror, targeted roles include AI data annotators, analytics specialists, and AI engineers, skill sets that position BPO employees for functions that remain in demand as routine processing is automated.
The 10,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) workers targeted for 2026 will be joined by 34,000 workers receiving AI upskilling through partner technical-vocational institutions, expanding the program’s reach across clerical, finance, accounting, and sales roles beyond the core BPO sector.
“In the Philippine labor market, we’re seeing that AI is transforming jobs rather than outright replacing them,” said Torres.
Upskilling initiative prepares workers for AI-led job transitions
The program targets workers in finance, accounting, clerical support, and sales alongside BPO operators, reflecting AI’s restructuring of job categories across the broader Philippine services sector.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is set to join the initiative in 2027, expanding the program under a unified TESDA-DICT AI-upskilling platform known as Project Unlad.
“That’s why our upskilling and reskilling are very important because we have to upgrade the occupations,” Torres said.
For BPO providers and buyers evaluating offshore delivery capacity in the Philippines, the DOLE initiative signals that the government is actively managing the AI-driven workforce transition rather than leaving adaptation to individual employers.
The combination of IBPAP’s industry-specific curriculum design, TESDA’s enterprise-based delivery model, and a planned DICT expansion in 2027 gives the program structural continuity beyond a single-year pilot.
Buyers building long-term offshore relationships with Philippines-based providers should expect AI workforce capability to become a formal part of provider-level service differentiation over the next two years.
Related news
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- IBPAP names first female president as Celeste Ilagan takes the helm · 9 Sep
Disclosure: Outsource Accelerator uses AI tools in the backend of its editorial workflow. Every article is reviewed and verified by a human editor before publication.
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