This is an excellent study of call centers in the Philippines. The author has gone to considerable lengths to ensure a balanced account of an important and still growing industry in a world marked by a global network of communicative structures. Jan M. Padios combines a critical approach to the subject with empathy for her informants. Her ethnic background facilitates this empathetic understanding despite her American upbringing. The book is almost ethnographic, with detailed descriptions of her informants. The research spanned several years and involved prolonged visits to the Philppines.
The introduction of call centers in the Philippines proved to be an opportunity for fluent English speakers to enter the industry. This naturally favoured children of the affluent class given their familiarity with American culture.
Initially, Filipinos with professional qualifications such as nursing were attracted to work at call centers, given the relatively higher salaries and flexible schedules. But the attraction and novelty were soon replaced by an awareness of the lack of career opportunities and a realisation that their work at call centers were essentially as sophisticated telephone operators. As Padios points out, the American trainers were often less academically qualified than their Filipino counterparts. The industry was, after all, not attractive to American college graduates and mostly employed academic under-achievers. It must have been difficult and even painful for these American trainers to train Filipinos to take over their jobs. The tragedy of this situation for the American underclass became evident in the recent rise of politicians such as Trump who promised to bring these jobs back to America and make the nation great again!
But as the industry expanded quickly, call centers in the Philippines were forced to expand their recruitment to include more socially diverse applicants. Whereas Manila and its immediate environs were the first to witness this rapid expansion, provincial cities such as Dumaguete and Cebu soon followed. Call centers are now found in many urban areas throughout the country.
This new expanded workforce soon became a major landmark of Philippine life, reflecting the emphasis on the so-called knowledge economy. Call centers employ over a million workers who contribute a significant percentage of the economy, second only to the remittances of ten million overseas workers.
But this has come at a cost. Call center workers have had to adapt to satisfactorily meet the needs of their American clients. This has required a change in their self-perception, generating conflicts about their national identity and its relationship to a former colonial power. Agents have to anticipate the needs of their clients and assume a caring approach to client needs. This form of labor requires an affective as well as technical reorientation as part of everyday life. Work becomes not only a way of earning a living, but also a way of life that is often detached from more general norms and expectations.
The schedules were adjusted to suit American clients and local workers had to adjust to these unusual hours. Inevitably Filipino call center workers’ daily lives began to reflect this overseas orientation and they soon developed their own lifestyles built around conspicuous consumption and a shared camaraderie.
The industry became known as an exponent of an alternative and often liberated lifestyle. The workforce consisted mostly of young people, including many women, accustomed to pursuing their individual interests, often weakly adjusted to more traditional domestic routines. Call centers soon became identified with a freewheeling hedonistic culture indicative of the global transformations characterising the new world order. Changes in sexual norms, illegal drug-use and the individual pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction were seen as the hallmark of this new workforce. It was partly this capacity to break away from tight family relationships that attracted a less conventional segment of young people.
Padios gives us a very convincing account of these changes and successfully relates them to broader political factors such as the conflicting and ambiguous relations between the Philippines and America. The industry was a product of as well as coincided with broader global forces challenging the established political and cultural borders of nation-states. This slim book is filled with penetrating insights about the changes in personal identities and intervening forces brought by the facility for global communication. My only criticism of Padios’ approach is its emphasis on a neo-liberal capitalism that is almost anthropomorphic.
More recently, the industry has continued its growth despite the interruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Many companies have shifted their employees to work from home, thereby providing more opportunities for a more diverse labor force, particularly for women with children. The industry is no longer associated with aspirations of achieving a middle class lifestyle as it once was. Instead it provides an alternative for members of the working class hitherto limited to more tedious forms of factory work. Wages (except for supervisors and senior administrators) are no longer as alluring as they once were and most companies now pay a basic minimum salary.
This book is an important contribution towards understanding how the new communication technologies are affecting everyday life in the Philippines. Minor points: the number of overseas Filipino workers is incorrect (p. 3), and the font size could have been bigger to facilitate reading. It is stylistically excellent, and Padios presents complex and revealing truths in deceptively simple language.
