MONTEGO BAY, St James — President of Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ) Wayne Sinclair has committed to continue, during his tenure which began on July 31, the association’s focus on alleviating the labour shortage now dogging the sector that employs roughly 50,000 and earns more than US$1 billion per year.

Sinclair, who is managing director of National Credit Adjusters, was elected to the top post during the 11th annual general meeting of GSAJ, also known as Business Process Industry Association of Jamaica (BPIAJ). He took over the reins from Anand Biradar

“The key issue that we face now is really labour. We have a shortage of labour, not only in terms of numbers, but also in terms of the entry level skills sets that we are seeing. That’s something that we have been working on aggressively and proactively over the past couple of years or so. And that is something that I also want to continue doing because obviously we are going to need good, skilled workforce players to ensure that we continue to deliver the services that we have,” Sinclair told journalists.

He pointed out that during the last administration there was an overwhelming take up of an upskilling training programme offered.

“We have the Global Services Sector Council (GSSC) and we had a partnership with the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank}, with Jampro as the Government of Jamaica executing agency, and HEART as the education institution that implemented a programme that saw almost 1,000 persons trained in skills development and management skills,” he said.

“The original target was for 400 to be trained and we got close to 1,000 persons to be trained. So there was a lot of take-up from the companies in the sector. The feedback from the apprentices and those who were engaged in the management services was very positive. They learnt quite a bit and, of course, the companies themselves definitely saw a substantial rate of returns, so to speak, in terms of the upskilling of people’s knowledge and ability to manage the rules in the sector,” Sinclair added.

He spoke glowingly of the industry’s growth that continued throughout the pandemic “which underpinned the relatively muted economic shock to Jamaica’s economy”.

He also pointed to “the impressive double-digit growth in employment with well over 50,000 people directly employed currently, and this does not include all the industries and downstream jobs created.

Other members elected to the new executive include: Lynda Langford of Conduent as first vice-president; Leezo Wallace of Unique Vacations Limited, second vice-president; Tamara Ricketts -Brown of Ibex, third vice-president; Julaire Hall was elected general secretary while Andrew Fazio of C&W Business is treasurer.

Other members of the board include Jeanne-Marie Dillon-Barrett, Egbert von Frankenberg, Lowenfield Alleyne, Don Gittens, Mark Kerr-Jarrett, Gloria Henry, and Conrad Robinson.

“I would like to thank the membership of the GSAJ for entrusting me with the awesome responsibility of leading this association which has been so instrumental in guiding the advocacy and development of an industry that is increasingly critical to Jamaica’s GDP and economic stability,” Sinclair said.

“The GSAJ has been doing this for some 12 years now and continues to grow from strength to strength,” he said.