Last week I wrote about call centers as employment generators.

Many have painted a rosy picture of the capability of call centers to provide employment. Sen. Mar Roxas has said so many times, even when he was still the Secretary of Trade and Industry. However, the recent trip to Tacloban City of recruitment staff from the world's largest call center company – Convergys, proved that the picture is not that rosy at all. It can even be discouraging.

Convergys has not released the results of their Job Fair. Unofficial reports appear to show that only around 120 or 5 percent of some 2,500 applicants were accepted. There are those who even say that less than 50 were accepted while several hundreds were told to come back in May when Convergys returns to Tacloban City for another round of exams.

It seems that the problem is that the applicants were not fully aware of the nature of the interviews and exercises. Also, many did not know the basic requirement of “speaking English the American way” and “thinking like an American”.

Even with the disappointing performance of the applicants, the Provincial Government of Leyte (which is leading this campaign to locate call centers in Leyte ) should not give up. My suggestion is for them to sponsor the conduct of orientations and short trainings to prepare the applicants and considerably improve their “hireability”.

A well-designed training for 5 days or 40 hours would be a big help.

This subsidized training (the applicant can pay a nominal fee to show interest and commitment) will be justified by the long-term economic impact of these call centers on employment and income.

The trainings can be held at the speech and computer laboratories of the Leyte Normal University and the Eastern Visayas State University , especially during this summer when these are hardly used.

Perhaps, the officials of the Province of Leyte can closely analyze together with Convergys, what training would be needed and proceed from there and target, say at least 50 percent passing rate for those who are trained after hurdling a basic English grammar exam that the Provincial Government may require.

The computer exam can also be simulated (if typing speed is to be included, more hours have to be added to the training) to make the applicants more confident.

I still believe we can have call centers in Eastern Visayas . We just need a little more preparation. Also, companies other than Convergys should be invited and assisted. Companies like PeopleSupport might also be interested. PeopleSupport transferred its call center from California to this country about two years ago.

I am still predicting that we will have at least 3 call centers in Leyte by 2007, employing at least 1,000 able workers from Eastern Visayas .