The outsourcing of human resource functions in Asia Pacific will grow 17.52 per cent annually between 1999 and 2004 to touch $2.56 billion by the end of this year, according to a study.

In 1999 the HR outsourcing market was at $1.14 billion. "The biggest component of HR services that are outsourced are payroll services. Its share in the overall market will be $761.20 million in 2004, followed by education and training at $555.99 million and benefits administration at $535.65 million," the study by global HR consultancy firm Hewitt Associates said.

Hewitt conducted the HR Outsourcing Study in the fall of 2003 and the survey of 524 companies reporting on 697 offices in the Asia-Pacific region revealed that 39 per cent of the offices had already outsourced their HR processes.

The study said that outsourcing of HR processes is still relatively a new concept to many companies in the region. Many countries like India, Malaysia, Philippines and Australia are proactive in offering themselves to the United States and European organisations as outsourcing centres.

Overall, companies operating in Asia expressed their intent to outsource more than two services over a period of time. Benefits administration was expressed as a preference with training, medical claims processing, payroll and recruitment also being considered.