Manila has become the world's busiest call centre hub, overtaking India on the strength of an English-speaking workforce, political stability, and familiarity with Western culture. Built up in roughly a decade, the outsourcing industry now employs 420,000 people and generates around $11bn a year, about five percent of the Philippines' GDP, with Western firms drawn by labor cost savings of up to 70 percent and a workable time zone. This 101 East episode visits the trading floors where only five in every hundred applicants pass a call centre's hiring test, and travels to provincial hubs outside Manila, where new roads and airports are following the jobs. The industry pays starting salaries roughly 40 percent above minimum wage and has slowed the brain drain seen elsewhere in Asia, but local industry leaders and academics argue universities and government have failed to build the critical-thinking skills needed as companies try to move beyond phone work into animation, game design, and engineering services.