Following a scale down of investments to the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry last year, president of the Business Process Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) Gloria Henry said that the sector has since rebounded and is expecting to see increased growth over the course of this year.

With reports from the recently tabled Planning Institute of Jamaica’s (PIOJ) Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, citing a US$21.6 million stalling of planned investments along with over 4,000 new job opportunities to the sector in 2020 as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Henry said that current signs for growth and the prospects for increased investments in the industry were now trending in a positive direction.

“We are making progress and we have been seeing a healthy interest since 2021 which has had about three new entities starting operations since this year. We are also seeing organic growth from existing players as a lot of the existing firms expand and open new sites across the country.

“It’s very exciting and I’m very optimistic based on what I’m seeing from the growth of existing players who obviously are getting new business,” she told the Jamaica Observer during a recent telephone interview.

While unable to put a dollar value on the growing level of investments in the sector, Henry said she was thrilled about the prospects to follow.

“This is good news for us as it means more jobs for Jamaicans. We are very excited with what is happening with the global skills services (GSS) project as the apprenticeship and skills training projects have also been going very well,” she told the Business Observer.

Operating with just under 44,000 employees across approximately 95 domestic and international firms, Henry said that the sector was now working to reach its 50,000 employees milestone as it also places greater emphasis on adding more jobs in higher value-added outsourcing services.

“We are seeing some reasonable increases in higher value services, some of which have grown between 30-150 per cent in the last two years especially in information technology (IT) outsourcing, application development and shared services, which is one of the areas in which we are focusing due the interest from entities providing support in this area,” she said, adding that a soon to be rolled out training programme by HEART Trust/ NTSA will significantly help to upskill some 24,000 people over the next two years.

“This will help to create a pipeline of talent for [new firms] coming to Jamaica and needing talent and with areas of higher value also being addressed, it’s all in all a good look for the sector,” Henry said.

The BPO sector, which currently provides a raft of services in banking, insurance, logistics, customer care and tech support, through its push towards knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) wants to expand into other services including finance and accounting, human resource management services, market research, proposal writing and medical services.

Citing the continued challenges surrounding connectivity, the president said she was hoping for an urgent resolve of these issues.

“As we scale, grow and expand, there is greater need for more bandwidth to support our expansions hence it is something that we really need to find a solution for,” she stated, noting also that the sector’s adherence to ministry protocols and applying its provisioned work from home (WFH) policy where necessary has also helped to positively impact continuity of operations and stability within the sector.