Tufton pushing ICT sector for job creation
Published:Friday | August 5, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
The Government will be looking to the information, communication and technology (ICT) sector to provide thousands of well-needed jobs over the next 12 to 18 months and Dr Christopher Tufton, minister of industry, investment and commerce, is confident that this can be achieved.
Tufton's plan, announced yesterday, echoes a proposal put forward 11 years ago by then Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell, who had told the country that the Government would push the ICT sector to create 40,000 new jobs in three years.
But while Paulwell's experiment ended in a costly failure, Tufton said the factors are aligned to make his venture a success.
According to Tufton, his emphasis will be on the business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry which is expected to grow to US$5 billion by 2013.
Climate right
While Tufton accepts that there are many challenges, he believes the climate is right for the creation of thousands of new jobs.
"There are variables you can control and variables you can't control in any economy, which makes identifying a figure not an exact science, so let me clarify it in that way," Tufton told journalists as he responded to questions about the number of jobs targeted.
"We believe that over the next few years, we could more than double (the 11,000 people now employed in BPO locally). In fact, I'm looking personally at 30,000 jobs in two to three years," added Tufton.
According to the industry minister, the BPO sector has grown from just under 3,000 in the year 2000 to the current 11,000, showing that Jamaica has been improving steadily over the years.
He said over the next few weeks, the Government would unveil a five-point plan to drive expansion in the sector.
Among the areas to be addressed are market-client segmentation and targeting, infrastructure build-out, policy and legislative framework and financing to support ICT activity.
Casserly to head team
Tufton will also have one of the country's most successful private-sector leaders in ICT, Patrick Casserly, as part of the team seeking to attract investors.
Casserly will serve as ambassador/special envoy with responsibility for ICT in the industry, investment and commerce ministry.
Casserly, who grew his e-Services Group from 35 employees to more than 4,000 before selling the business, has been mandated to assist in the refinement and execution of the promotion strategy for the ICT sector with a view to converting leads into prospects and to landed investments.