MONTEGO BAY, St James — With business process outsourcing (BPO), notably in Montego Bay, being considered the fastest-growing sector in the country, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) P B Scott says the possibilities would be even greater if the right approach is taken.

According to Scott, what is going on in Montego Bay and other parts of the island could improve by leaps and bounds if the effort is made to have people properly trained to meet the growing demands of the BPO sector.

“Jamaica indeed has a great opportunity. This is a global business that is huge and could easily double and even triple if we have the right approach to training,” the PSOJ president pointed out.

“Our group Musson has invested significantly in this sector as we are currently building the largest technology park in the English-speaking Caribbean at 58 Half Way Tree Road.”

Scott noted that not only can the BPO sector grow the economy, but that it also provides significant employment opportunities for those under 30 years of age, “which is where our largest unemployment segment lies”.

“It will bring a large segment of the society into productive activities which, of course, will lead to GDP growth. In addition, those individuals will spend their income in the economy which will have a multiplier effect,” he added.

Scott further argued that the reason for the BPO sector being such a growing phenomenon is because of Jamaica’s proximity to the United States and also “because our greatest asset in Jamaica is our human capital”.

“We speak English and it is a huge market,” he added.

Scott’s remarks echoed those of Prime Minister Andrew Holness who several weeks ago, at a function in Montego Bay, bemoaned the fact that the labour force was not keeping pace with the growing BPO sector.

”There are not enough qualified people to fill the jobs,” Holness emphasised. “We have to address the binding constraint of the growth of the BPO sector…and that is the labour force. It is amazing to think that an industry like this…that employs people and has the potential to employ a vast number of other people…that an actual constraint to its growth would be not having the human resources that are trained at a level to assume work immediately.”

Jamaica’s BPO sector has experienced significant growth over the past few years, carving out niches in health care, telecoms, retail, finance and accounting, and tech support.

The country is hoping to evolve beyond its core to focus on higher-level knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Its incubator programme, which aims to make setting up a business in Jamaica as easy as possible, has attracted attention from a number of players, and there are now two incubators running one with 200 seats and another with 300 coming on stream shortly.

Scott says that he agrees with the prime minister that the business climate is good and investor-friendly, adding that, from the PSOJ’s standpoint, business and investor confidence are very high.

“There is hardly any room for complacency,” he warned, however. “We have to bring things like crime under control.”