The Philippines' booming outsourcing industry has employed a million people after growing almost tenfold in just over a decade, according to the industry association.

Widely considered as second only after India, the Philippine outsourcing industry is expected to earn 18 billion USD this year, AFP quoted Ppresident Jose Mari Mercado of the IT and Business Process Association Philippines as saying.

He added that the country targets 1.3 million employees in this sector by 2016, with its revenues increasing to 25 billion USD.

The business process outsourcing or BPO sector has emerged as a shining star of the Philippine economy after posting just 1.5 billion USD in revenues with 103,500 employees in 2004, figures released by the industry group showed.

This has helped provide better-paying jobs to a country where 10 million people, about a tenth of the population, have travelled overseas to seek employment.

For each person hired directly by the industry, about 2.5 additional support jobs are also generated, the association said.

The Philippines is expanding into more sophisticated outsourced operations such as financial services, software design, medical and legal transcription, animation and gaming.

In 2012, the industry accounted for 5.6 percent of the country's gross domestic product and the figure could rise to 7.8 percent by 2016, said Rick Santos, chairman of CBRE Philippines.-VNA