List of US Companies That Outsource Operations (2026)

US companies that outsource have become the clearest proof that outsourcing is a permanent business strategy, not a short-term fix. According to Demandsage, 66% of US businesses outsource at least one department, and the names leading that list may surprise you: Google, Apple, Meta, IBM, American Express, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp. This post covers all ten, with 2026 data on what they outsource, where they outsource it, and why the Philippines keeps showing up as the answer. For a broader look at which companies across all markets outsource and why, see our Companies That Outsource pillar guide. For outsourcing fundamentals and a business process outsourcing overview, those posts have you covered.

What Are the Top US Companies That Outsource?

Ten major US companies outsource significant operations, primarily to the Philippines and India. Collectively, they account for hundreds of thousands of outsourced roles across customer support, technology, content moderation, and manufacturing. The ten companies are: Google, Apple, Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, IBM, American Express, Wells Fargo, LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp. Each one reaches into external workforces not because they lack resources, but because outsourcing delivers speed, talent access, and operational flexibility that internal headcount alone cannot match.

Why US Companies Outsource in 2026

The reasons US companies outsource have shifted sharply. Cost was once the dominant driver. Deloitte’s 2024 Global Outsourcing Survey found that only 34% of executives now cite cost reduction as the primary reason for outsourcing, down from roughly 70% in 2020. The primary drivers today are talent access and operational agility, the ability to scale quickly, reach specialized skills, and respond faster than a purely internal workforce allows.

The same Deloitte survey found that 80% of executives are maintaining or increasing their outsourcing investment in 2024. Front-office work is no longer off the table either: 50% of companies now outsource front-office functions including sales, marketing, and research, categories that were traditionally kept internal. And 78% are using global in-house centers (GICs) alongside outsourcing partners, blending internal offshore teams with third-party providers.

There is also an AI paradox worth understanding. 83% of surveyed companies use AI in their outsourced services, yet outsourcing volumes keep growing. Many executives assumed AI would reduce the need for outsourced labor. The pattern that is emerging is the opposite: AI handles routine automation, which raises the floor for what outsourced human agents do, and the demand for skilled human support grows alongside it. Outsourcing is now structural, built into how large US companies operate, not a cost lever they pull when budgets tighten.

The 4 Patterns of US Enterprise Outsourcing

After 15 years serving US clients across industries, Digital Minds BPO has observed that US enterprise outsourcing consistently falls into four distinct patterns. The companies below all fit one of these patterns, and understanding which pattern applies tells you a great deal about how they outsource and why.

Pattern 1: Manufacturing Outsourcing

Companies like Apple and Nike outsource their physical production to manufacturing hubs in Asia, primarily China, Vietnam, and India. This pattern is driven by supply chain economics, tooling expertise, and the sheer scale of manufacturing infrastructure that no US domestic facility can replicate at competitive cost. The outsourced workers are not support agents; they are production workers in factories operated by contracted manufacturing partners. Apple alone has confirmed that over 95% of its products are assembled outside the US, representing 450,000+ outsourced supply chain jobs tied to US-based suppliers and vendors.

Pattern 2: Technology and IT Outsourcing

Google, Microsoft, and IBM all rely on external workforces for IT services, technical support, infrastructure administration, and software-adjacent functions. This pattern exists because technology companies face a persistent domestic talent shortage in technical disciplines and because 24/7 support demands a globally distributed team. The Philippines has become a primary destination for this pattern, given the depth of the IT-BPM workforce and the time zone overlap with US daytime hours. IBM’s presence in the Philippines, for instance, has grown to over 15,000 employees supporting clients across 15 languages.

Pattern 3: Customer-Facing Operations

American Express and Wells Fargo represent the largest category of US enterprise outsourcing: customer service, contact center support, back-office processing, and related financial operations. These companies have entire divisions in Manila staffed by tens of thousands of agents. The pattern persists because customer-facing work scales with transaction volume, and building equivalent internal capacity in the US is simply not cost-efficient for functions that run 24 hours a day. American Express now has 20,000 employees in Manila alone, a number that doubled between 2020 and early 2025.

Pattern 4: Trust and Safety Operations

Meta and LinkedIn represent a newer but now well-established outsourcing pattern: content moderation, policy enforcement, and trust and safety operations. This work requires human judgment at massive scale, and no algorithm has fully replaced it. Meta alone employs over 10,000 content moderators in the Philippines through contracted partners, with Manila as the primary hub. LinkedIn similarly outsources content moderation and user safety review to external teams. This pattern emerged as platforms scaled faster than their internal teams could manage the volume of user-generated content that required human review.

10 Major US Companies That Outsource

Here are the ten most-watched US companies that outsource, with what they outsource, where they outsource to, and what makes each one worth paying attention to in 2026.

1. Google

Google is among the most aggressive outsourcers in the technology sector. A 2018 Fortune investigation reported that Google’s contracted and outsourced workforce exceeded its full-time employee count, making it a majority outsourced operation by headcount. The company outsources customer support for its advertising products, IT services, and content moderation. Google operates a Manila office specifically to coordinate its growing partnership with Philippine BPO providers. The technical support functions outsourced through that operation include AdWords account management, product support, and vendor coordination across multiple time zones. Google’s pattern fits Pattern 2 (Technology and IT Outsourcing), with elements of Pattern 4 for content review functions.

2. Apple

Apple is the world’s most prominent example of Pattern 1 manufacturing outsourcing. Over 95% of Apple products are assembled outside the United States. Apple has confirmed that its supply chain supports 450,000+ outsourced jobs through US-based suppliers and vendors. The manufacturing is primarily done in China through partners like Foxconn and Pegatron, though Apple has been actively diversifying: iPhone 16 Pro models are now assembled in India, a significant shift that signals the pattern is evolving. Beyond manufacturing, Apple also outsources customer support through AppleCare programs, where a portion of support agents are employed through third-party providers in the Philippines and elsewhere.

3. Microsoft

Microsoft works with thousands of independent contractors and outsourcing agencies worldwide. Most of the company’s internal technical support is handled by third-party agencies rather than direct employees. The company outsources a wide range of IT services including tech support, network administration, and infrastructure management. Microsoft has active engagements with Philippine BPO providers for customer-facing support and technical services. The company’s global footprint means it needs 24/7 support across many time zones, and the Philippine workforce’s English proficiency and cultural alignment with US business norms make it a consistent destination for these roles.

4. Meta (formerly Facebook)

Meta operates one of the largest outsourced workforces in the technology sector. The company employs over 10,000 content moderators in the Philippines, primarily through Accenture, at a Manila office that functions as a dedicated content moderation hub. Beyond moderation, Meta outsources customer support, IT services, and trust and safety review. This is Pattern 4 at industrial scale. Content moderation is one of those functions where content moderation services require trained human judgment that no automation fully replaces, and the volume of user-generated content on Meta’s platforms makes an outsourced model the only practical approach. Meta also works with BPO companies in the Philippines for other operational support functions.

5. IBM

IBM has one of the longest and deepest outsourcing relationships with the Philippines of any US technology company. IBM Philippines operates with over 15,000 employees across facilities in Bonifacio Global City (BGC) and Cebu. The company’s Client Innovation Center in Manila supports 200+ clients across 15 languages. In 2024, IBM launched the Japan Innovation Hub in Cebu through IBM Consulting, adding another strategic function to its Philippine operations. IBM has been present in the Philippines since 2004, making it one of the earliest adopters among major US tech companies. The company’s Philippine operations cover IT outsourcing, analytics, AI services, and client support across Asia-Pacific.

6. American Express

American Express is one of the most significant employers in the Philippine BPO sector. American Express Manila reached 20,000 employees in early 2025, roughly double its 2020 headcount. The company opened a second office tower in Uptown Bonifacio in February 2025 to accommodate the expansion. Services run through the Manila operation include customer service, back-office processing, vendor management, contact center operations, and technical support. AmEx was an early adopter of outsourcing: the company has run call centers in the Philippines for decades. The Manila team also handles outsourced technical support and payment collections. AmEx is the clearest example of Pattern 3 at scale.

7. Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo operates an extensive outsourcing presence in the Philippines through its Enterprise Global Services (EGS) division. According to Wells Fargo’s own careers site, its Manila operation supports more than 50% of the company’s business lines, covering technology, operations, risk, audit, and AI/data modeling roles. The company has been actively hiring in the Philippines in 2026 across all these functions. Wells Fargo’s EGS model is not a traditional outsourcing arrangement in the sense of contracting with a BPO provider; it is an in-house offshore center. But the net effect is the same: thousands of roles that would otherwise be US-based are delivered from Manila. This is Pattern 3, with a significant technology and risk layer that is uncommon among financial services outsourcers.

8. LinkedIn

LinkedIn outsources content moderation and user safety review to external companies, placing it firmly in Pattern 4. The company also relies on outsourced customer service and technical support, with back-office functions handled by third-party teams. LinkedIn’s specific Philippine BPO relationships are less publicly documented than those of Meta or IBM, so this entry is framed conservatively. What is confirmed: LinkedIn uses contracted partners for content review, and its trust and safety operations are not fully internal. With more than 1 billion registered users across 200+ countries, the demand for outsourced human review at LinkedIn is ongoing and substantial.

9. Slack

Slack Technologies, now owned by Salesforce, has used outsourcing throughout its history. Early in its growth phase, Slack contracted an outside agency to design its logo, website, and mobile applications. The company continued to use external firms for advertising, marketing, and software development work. Salesforce, the parent company, also outsources customer service, software development, and design functions through external partners. This is Pattern 2, with Slack’s history offering a useful example of how outsourcing enables product companies to move faster in early stages without building every function internally. The specific outsourcing relationships Slack and Salesforce use today are not publicly detailed, so this entry focuses on the confirmed pattern rather than specific partners.

10. WhatsApp

WhatsApp’s pre-acquisition story is one of the most famous examples of outsourcing as a scaling strategy. Before Meta acquired it in 2014, WhatsApp had just 30 employees. Nearly all technical roles were filled by outsourced team members, and the customer service function was handled by a small internal team. The company served over 400 million users at acquisition with that lean model. WhatsApp is now owned by Meta, and its operations are integrated into Meta’s larger outsourcing infrastructure. The WhatsApp story is regularly cited in startup circles as proof that a lean internal headcount, supported by outsourced technical talent, can scale to global reach before raising enormous capital.

Read moreOutsourcing vs Offshoring: Know the Key Difference and Find Out What's Right for Your Business

Here is a side-by-side comparison of all ten companies:

What US Companies Outsource Most

The Deloitte 2024 survey confirmed a shift in the mix: 50% of companies now outsource front-office functions including sales, marketing, and R&D, categories that were historically kept internal. Beyond that leading edge, the most commonly outsourced functions across US businesses follow a fairly consistent pattern.

The most commonly outsourced functions across US businesses span IT services, accounting and bookkeeping, digital marketing, software development, customer service, and payroll. Customer service and contact center work are the functions most visible in the examples above: Google, Meta, IBM, AmEx, Wells Fargo, and LinkedIn all run significant customer-facing outsourcing operations. Content moderation has become its own distinct category, now dominated by the trust-and-safety work at Meta and LinkedIn. For financial services companies, back-office processing, payroll, and audit support are the functions that move offshore most reliably because they are high-volume, process-driven, and well-suited to a managed remote team.

For a deeper look at specific function categories: call center outsourcing covers the contact center model in detail. The pros and cons of outsourcing customer service is worth reading before committing to a model. And for a full taxonomy of what functions can be outsourced, types of outsourcing breaks it down by function and structure. A broader catalog of services is at 62 outsourcing services.

Why US Companies Choose the Philippines

North America accounts for roughly 70% of total demand for Philippine BPO services, according to IBPAP (IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines). The Philippines IT-BPM sector reached $40 billion in revenue and 1.9 million workers in 2025, with $42 billion projected for 2026. Those numbers did not emerge by accident; they are a direct result of US enterprise decisions like the ones American Express, IBM, and Meta made when they built large Manila operations.

The practical reasons US companies keep choosing the Philippines come down to four factors. English proficiency is the most frequently cited: the Philippines consistently ranks among the top non-native English-speaking countries in the world, and its business communication norms align closely with US corporate culture. Time zone overlap is the second factor: Philippine business hours overlap with US daytime for East Coast afternoons and West Coast mornings, enabling real-time collaboration without full night-shift operations. Third is talent depth: a 1.9-million-person trained workforce in IT-BPM means there is a supply of experienced agents across every major function. Fourth is value: a dedicated Filipino professional costs a fraction of equivalent US labor, without the quality trade-offs that cheaper alternatives in other markets sometimes carry.

The proof is in the numbers above: American Express 20,000 employees in Manila, IBM 15,000 across BGC and Cebu, Meta 10,000 content moderators. For more on why the Philippines specifically attracts this volume of US investment, why outsource to the Philippines covers the factors in detail. For a wider view of how the country built itself into the dominant US outsourcing destination, our outsourcing to the Philippines guide walks through the history and the model. And for outsourcing data across the broader industry, the outsourcing statistics post tracks the key numbers.

What 15+ Years Serving US Companies Has Taught Us

Digital Minds BPO, a business process outsourcing company based in Naga City, Philippines, has worked with US clients across multiple industries since 2010. Three patterns show up repeatedly, and they explain a lot about why some outsourcing relationships thrive while others stall.

Companies that succeed at outsourcing treat the offshore team as an extension of their own operation, not a vendor they manage at arm’s length. The ones that struggle treat outsourcing as a transactional arrangement: hand off the work, check a report, repeat. The difference in outcomes is significant. Our 94% client retention rate and 4.7-year average partnership duration are partly a function of client selection, but mostly a function of how deeply integrated our teams become with client operations over time.

The companies that outsource at the scale of AmEx, Meta, or IBM did not start with 20,000 people. They started with 50 to 100 and built the model before scaling it. Two failure patterns come up consistently: under-investing in onboarding (assuming the team will self-orient) and treating outsourced work as “set and forget” (assuming quality holds without ongoing engagement). Both patterns are avoidable with the right partner and a structured 60-to-90-day onboarding period. Companies that follow through on that initial investment rarely leave.

Frequently Asked Questions About US Companies That Outsource

Which American companies outsource the most?

Apple is the largest outsourcer by volume, with 450,000+ jobs tied to its supply chain outside the US and 95%+ of products assembled offshore. IBM operates across 170+ countries with 15,000+ employees in the Philippines alone. Meta employs 10,000+ content moderators in Manila. American Express has 20,000 employees in Manila. Google’s contracted workforce exceeded its full-time employee count as of 2018. Beyond tech and financial services, large retailers like Walmart outsource accounting functions, healthcare companies like UnitedHealth Group outsource IT, and pharmaceutical firms like Pfizer outsource significant R&D and manufacturing.

How many US jobs are outsourced each year?

Approximately 300,000 US jobs are outsourced overseas each year, according to Mordor Intelligence data compiled by Demandsage in February 2026. This is a gross flow number, not a net job loss figure. Many outsourced functions create new domestic roles in management, vendor oversight, and strategic coordination. The jobs that move offshore tend to be volume-intensive operational roles; the jobs that stay or get created domestically tend to be higher-value supervisory and analytical positions.

Why do US companies outsource to the Philippines?

English proficiency, cultural compatibility with US business norms, time zone overlap with US business hours, and a 1.9-million-person trained IT-BPM workforce are the four primary reasons. North America accounts for roughly 70% of total Philippine BPO demand (IBPAP), which means the US-Philippines outsourcing relationship is not a niche arrangement; it is the dominant flow in the global outsourcing market. The cost efficiency of Philippine talent, relative to equivalent US labor, is a factor, though it is increasingly secondary to talent quality and operational reliability.

What is the difference between outsourcing and offshoring?

Read moreTop 20 Jobs That Are Outsourced: Roles Outsourcing Companies Can Perform For Your Team 

Outsourcing means hiring an external party to perform work, which can be domestic or international. Offshoring means relocating work to another country, which can be through an in-house offshore subsidiary or through an external partner. Most US enterprises use offshoring and outsourcing together: they hire a Philippine BPO provider (outsourcing) who operates from a location in Manila (offshoring). Wells Fargo’s EGS model is an example of offshoring without outsourcing: the Manila operation is an in-house Wells Fargo center, not a third-party provider. Meta’s content moderation operation is an example of both: outsourced to Accenture (outsourcing) in Manila (offshoring).

Does Coca-Cola use outsourcing?

Yes. Coca-Cola outsources distribution, bottling, and portions of its IT infrastructure. The bottling operation is the best-known example: over 250 independent bottling partners worldwide handle production and distribution under license, rather than Coca-Cola operating its own bottling plants in every market. This is a form of manufacturing outsourcing similar in structure to Apple’s supply chain model, where the brand company focuses on product development, marketing, and distribution strategy, while production is handled by contracted partners.

Ready to Outsource Like the Industry Leaders?

The playbook the companies above followed is consistent: start with a focused team, treat them as a genuine extension of your operation, and grow as you prove the model. Digital Minds BPO has 15+ years building dedicated teams for US companies, with three facilities in Naga City, a 94% client retention rate, and an average partnership of 4.7 years. If your company is ready to explore what that looks like in practice, the conversation starts here.

Sofia Reyes

Sofia Reyes is a Content Writer and SEO Specialist at Digital Minds BPO, where she focuses on outsourcing-industry research and educational content for business decision-makers. Based in the Philippines, she has 7 years of experience writing B2B content across SEO, content strategy, and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Sofia partners with Digital Minds BPO’s operations and account management teams to translate 15+ years of frontline BPO experience into clear, sourced guides on call center, customer service, and back-office outsourcing. Her work supports prospects evaluating outsourcing decisions across the company’s three dedicated facilities, where the team delivers a 94% client retention rate for clients ranging from Fortune 500 enterprises to growth-stage businesses.