‘I feel like I dug my own grave’: The workers caught in the AI transition
An investigation by the BBC into the Philippines' outsourcing industry finds that artificial intelligence is beginning to displace workers in a sector that has long been a pillar of the country's economy. Former employees describe being made redundant after unknowingly helping train AI tools that later replaced them, raising broader questions about how emerging economies that built prosperity on business process outsourcing (BPO) will cope as generative AI automates the work.
The Philippines' outsourcing sector employs around 1.9 million people and generates roughly $40bn (£30.1bn) a year, about 10% of the national economy, having grown since the early 2000s as an English-speaking alternative to India. The International Labour Organization estimates 12.7 million Filipinos, more than one in four workers, are in jobs exposed to generative AI, the highest proportion in South East Asia. Industry body IBPAP says more than two-thirds of its members are already piloting AI, and while it maintains most affected staff are redeployed rather than dismissed, workers like "Lisa", a content writer let go shortly before her role became permanent, say they were used to train the very systems that replaced them.
- AI is displacing workers in the Philippines' huge outsourcing industry
- Sector employs 1.9m people, generates $40bn, about 10% of GDP
- ILO: over a quarter of Filipino workers exposed to generative AI risk
New here? Start with this
The Philippines built one of the world's biggest outsourcing industries over the past two decades, with call centres and back-office firms employing around 1.9 million people and contributing about a tenth of the national economy. Workers there handle everything from customer service calls to content writing for companies abroad, often prized for their English skills. That industry is now being reshaped by generative AI tools, which can perform many of the same tasks automatically.
Industry groups such as IBPAP represent the outsourcing firms, while the International Labour Organization has studied how exposed workers in the region are to this technology, estimating that more than a quarter of Filipino jobs could be affected. Some employees say they were asked to help develop or train AI systems as part of their work, without necessarily knowing this might later contribute to their own jobs disappearing.
The issue matters beyond one country's job market, because it raises questions about what happens to economies that grew prosperous by providing outsourced labour once that labour can increasingly be automated. It also touches on wider debates about how AI is introduced into workplaces, and what responsibilities employers have towards staff whose work helps build the technology that may replace them.