A key regional survey from Tholons ranked Cebu City as Asia’s top outsourcing city, followed by the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing.

Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Krakow in Poland remained in fourth and fifth places from the previous survey.

Data from the global outsourcing advisory firm revealed three other Philippine cities were included in the top 18 Asian outsourcing cities: Pasig, Quezon City and Mandaluyong.

Tholons hailed Cebu City, for the second year, as No. 1 based on scale and quality of workforce, infrastructure, business catalyst, risk profile, cost and quality of life.

Cebu whose BPO sector spurted to unprecedented growth in the past five years now employs 50,000 workers.

With 10 universities and colleges in Cebu, BPO recruiters are happy with the graduates they find, but lament that they need much more than what campuses are offering.

With a hiring rate of two percent to four percent of applicants, and the challenge of turnover after one to two years employment, the search for human talent extends to neighboring provinces just to fill seats of a hungry knowledge industry.

These two requirements will need to be addressed – and fast.

While Cebu can crow about its “potential,” it has to keep an eye too on the big picture.

Worldwide, the top global outsourcing sites according to Tholons are Indian cities – Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai – followed by Metro Manila or NCR (National Capital Region) in no. 4.