BPO sector poised to look overseas for specialist workers

WESTERN BUREAU:

Gloria Henry, immediate past president of the Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ), says she supports the importation of specialised workers in the outsourcing sector, but insists that greater emphasis must be placed on preparing school leavers for the world of work.

Currently, some 60,000 workers are employed in the nearly 100 outsourcing firms operating in Jamaica, and GSAJ, which represents information, communication technology, and the majority of the business process outsourcing (BPO) operations locally, is looking to add at least 15,000 more workers to its labour pool by 2025.

But there is cause for concern as a chronic shortage of qualified workers locally has affected all industries in the post-COVID era, which could see recruits from other countries filling the void, and Henry believes there needs to be a culture shift for this to change.

“The focus must be on training, training, and more training to make sure that the people coming out of school are adaptable, to even more than they can absorb the training,” said Henry. “We have a growth target of 75,000 workers by 2025, and we are still working towards that target. We are just 15,000 away or 5,000 annually to realise that growth.”

According to Henry, there are emerging areas in outsourcing that Jamaica is yet to capitalise on, especially high-value jobs. This includes procurement and supply chain, logistic outsourcing, facilities and administration, and AI prompt engineering.

Henry also believes that with the limited supply of quality labourers, the sector should consider importing workers to work in areas where local talent cannot be identified.

“I personally believe that this is a model we should look at,” she said.

The outsourcing community will showcase these and other new opportunities at the fourth staging of the Outsource2Jamaica Conference and Expo scheduled to take place on May 10-11.

Anand Biradar, president of GSAJ, welcomes the opportunity to showcase the sector, under the theme ‘Ahead of the Curve’. He is confident that Jamaica can experience even greater growth from the new technologies.

THE CHALLENGE

Henry, the co-chair of the conference, said operators will be challenged to look at the entire ecosystem of their businesses, with a heavy focus on the disruptive approaches that can be taken to capitalise on the numerous opportunities on offer and on young entrepreneurs in the tech space.

Leading analyst in the global outsourcing market has projected that by 2027, the sector will be valued at over one trillion dollars, and Henry believes the time has come for Jamaica to be repositioned to make the most of the new opportunities.

“There are still a lot of opportunities in the BPO space and one of the things we need to hurry and do is to reposition Jamaica within the global space because everybody knows us for our customer service. We have seen our capabilities in the higher value segment, now there is a great opportunity for Jamaica to reposition for these high-value services,” Henry said.