ST JAMES, Jamaica (JIS) — Prime Minister Andrew Holness says there are at least seven new Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) projects in the pipeline, which should significantly expand the sector and create many new jobs.

Holness pointed out that he is integrally involved in the seven projects, which should come on stream this year into early next year.

 “We will be breaking ground and starting construction. These projects may take a year or a year and a half to complete, but certainly we will see the manifestation of these projects within this year to mid next year and those projects will drive employment,” he said.

Addressing a groundbreaking ceremony for an additional 63,000 square feet of office space for the BPO industry, in the Montego Bay Free Zone, on August 25, the prime minister said the sector has the potential to employ more than 300,000 Jamaicans, and the new projects form part of that platform.

Meanwhile, the prime minister said as leader of the country, a part of his job is to look at potential threats to growth and put strategies in place to mitigate them.

He said already a threat has been identified that will impact the expansion of the BPO sector, which is the availability of trained human capital.

Holness said the necessary skills are available among Jamaicans but may not necessarily be available to the BPO sector, adding that this will be addressed through what he describes as “allocative realignment” of human resources.

“Within a year or two there will be some allocative realignment of human resources from other sectors to the BPO sector, and that’s what labour markets do. Labour markets work well when they can achieve allocative efficiency, when they can get the skills from the areas where they are not producing and contributing the most into the areas that they produce and contribute the most,” he explained.

According to the prime minister, the human resources can be reallocated from the public sector to the BPO sector.

“The role of Government in facilitating the allocative efficiencies of our labour market is to look where we have human resources whose skills could be better used in operations such as Business Process Outsourcing and facilitate that reallocation or that transfer. This is one way in which the Government acts as an enabler or facilitator,” Holness said.

He emphasised that Jamaica is now at a phase of development which demands that efficiencies be secured, and this must be addressed immediately.