Overview
For most of the last decade, the Philippine information technology and business process management industry, IT-BPM for short, published forecasts that only went up. In July 2026 its industry association did something new: it lowered them.
The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines, IBPAP, now expects the industry to reach 50.5 billion dollars in revenue and 2.14 million workers by 2028 under its best-case scenario. The roadmap it set in 2022 had aimed for 59 billion dollars and 2.5 million workers by the same year. Under the association's downside scenario, 2028 revenue reaches 43.3 billion dollars and the workforce shrinks to 1.85 million.
The reasons IBPAP gave were rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, changes in how buyers purchase services, and heightened global competition. The numbers are worth reading closely, because they describe an industry that still grows in money while changing what its people do.
The numbers behind the revision
The starting point is strong. The industry closed 2025 with export revenue above 40 billion dollars and a workforce of about 1.9 million, according to IBPAP's January results, with employment up 4 percent from 1.82 million in 2024.
In January, the baseline target for 2026 was 42 billion dollars and 1.97 million jobs. The July revision barely moved the near term: 42.3 billion dollars and 1.96 million workers for 2026. The change is in the years after.
| Scenario | 2028 revenue | 2028 workforce |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 roadmap | 59.0 billion dollars | 2.50 million |
| Revised best case | 50.5 billion dollars | 2.14 million |
| Revised downside | 43.3 billion dollars | 1.85 million |
The downside row carries the headline most readers miss. At 1.85 million, the 2028 workforce would be smaller than the roughly 1.89 million the industry employed in 2025, while revenue would still be higher. Fewer people producing more revenue is exactly what automation of routine work looks like on a spreadsheet.
What IBPAP means by AI-enabled
The association did not frame the revision as retreat. Jack Madrid, IBPAP's president and chief executive, called the projections "a more honest assessment of where the industry is headed" and shifted the target itself from jobs to capability.
"The most important word there is AI-enabled," he said, as reported by BusinessWorld. The number mattered less, he added, than the fact that the target describes workers equipped with AI capabilities rather than jobs alone.
That wording matters for anyone hiring in the Philippines. The industry's stated goal is no longer the largest possible headcount but a workforce that uses AI tools as part of the job. For employers, the practical signal is that candidates increasingly expect to work with AI assistance, and that roles built entirely on repeatable scripts are the ones the forecast treats as shrinking.
Where the growth is moving
The segment the association is counting on is the global capability center, or GCC: an offshore unit owned by a multinational rather than contracted to an outsourcing firm. Philippine GCCs employed about 270,000 professionals across roughly 200 centers in 2025, a figure projected to reach 289,000 in 2026, according to figures reported by Outsource Accelerator in September.
The work inside those centers leans toward finance and accounting, risk and compliance, data analytics, cybersecurity, engineering and healthcare operations. Roughly half of Philippine GCCs were already experimenting with or running generative AI in production in 2025, and the hardest roles to fill are in business analytics, machine learning and AI engineering.
Kevin Jara of Colliers Philippines summed up the shift: "The Philippines has moved beyond being primarily a cost-efficient services destination."
What the cut means for companies hiring Filipinos
Three readings follow from the numbers, and none of them is that the Philippines is becoming a weaker place to hire.
First, the supply of general back-office and contact center labor stays large. Even the downside scenario keeps the workforce near 1.85 million, among the largest English-speaking services workforces in the world.
Second, the premium is moving toward judgment work. The functions growing inside GCCs are the ones where a person reviews, decides and explains, often with AI doing the first draft. Job descriptions that ask for that kind of work will compete for a scarcer, better-paid group than descriptions built around volume.
Third, AI fluency is becoming a hiring criterion rather than a bonus. A candidate who can show how they use AI tools to check their own work is now describing the job the industry says it is building.
A new leader for the next phase
The revision is also the last major forecast under Madrid. IBPAP named Celeste Ilagan as its next president and chief executive in August, the first woman to hold the role, and she takes office on 11 October 2026. The roadmap she inherits is smaller in its ambitions for headcount and larger in its expectations of each worker.
Conclusion
The July 2026 revision is the Philippine IT-BPM industry pricing in artificial intelligence. Revenue is still expected to grow, from about 40 billion dollars in 2025 toward 43 to 50 billion by 2028, while the workforce may grow modestly or shrink slightly depending on how fast automation absorbs routine work.
For companies hiring Filipino talent, the lesson is to hire for the version of the industry the forecast describes: people who handle judgment, exceptions and explanation, and who already use AI tools to do it. That is where the growth sits, and where competition for good candidates will tighten first.
