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There has been no major fallout in the number of workers in the outsourcing sector in recent times, although there are ongoing resets of some of the business arrangements that gave the local sector a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic, the rewinding of which could have an impact, the new spokesman for the sector has said.
Outsourcing, which is better known in Jamaica as the business process outsourcing industry, BPO, or alternatively the global services sector, GSS, is a top employer in Jamaica, but there is now an expectation that the advancements in technology could curtail the levels of job growth, which has dampened optimism at some levels about the future employment prospects.
Additionally, one real estate developer has chosen to look beyond the outsourcing industry for tenants for the commercial space it recently brought to market.
However, Wayne Sinclair, the new president of the Global Service Association of Jamaica, GSAJ, said the greatest threat to the industry is not artificial intelligence, as many perceive, but the quality of the workforce.
The adoption of AI may help rather than hurt the sector, which accounts for 50,000 jobs, he asserted.
“The biggest problem we face is the quality of the education of entry-level employees, that is, students coming out of high school and coming into the workforce for the first time,” Sinclair said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.
“We have fallen behind where that is concerned. We have to ensure that our labour force has a high level of education so that we can continue to deliver the high standard of service that we have been delivering in this industry for the past 15 years,” he said.
The GSAJ president was commenting on the status of the sector, following the closure of two of the six locations operated in Jamaica by large outsourcing firm Ibex, and in the wake of recent commentary that the the rise of AI could eliminate a number of BPO jobs and cause a downsizing of the sector.
Sinclair said the closure of the Ibex locations was due to the consolidation of its local operations, after investing US$12 million in two other locations in Portmore, St Catherine. Ibex will be hiring 1,300 new employees in the coming months, he added.
“What we have to understand about the industry is that headcount ebbs and flows. Quite frequently the corporate headquarters, which is usually located in the United States, may for strategic reasons move a campaign from Jamaica to another country, or may also move a campaign from another country into Jamaica,” Sinclair said.
The GSAJ president otherwise noted that some of the uncertainty is due to the ongoing post-pandemic reset in the sector.
“During the pandemic, larger BPO countries, such as the Philippines, had much more stringent and draconian measures (than Jamaica) and a lot of business moved from those geographies into Jamaica, giving Jamaica a pandemic specific bump,” Sinclair noted.
“Now that the pandemic is over, and things have gotten back to normal, some of that business that we got, as a result of the pandemic, is going back (to other markets),” Sinclair said.
Speaking as Managing Director of National Credit Adjusters, which is a branch of a debt collection company headquartered in the United States, Sinclair said his company has been utilising AI technology for the past six years. The company, which operates from the Montego Bay Free Zone, uses AI technology to analyse calls to its agents and generate reports based on the best practices of agent interaction with consumers.
Sinclair acknowledged that adoption of the tool may result in the loss of some low-level jobs, across the industry, but he also asserted that AI could create opportunities for employment.
“It’s important to know that when leadership looks at artificial intelligence, the first thought that comes to their mind is not how many jobs can I cut, but rather how can I make my existing staff more efficient and deliver more. This in turn can allow us to hire more staff because the quality of our service delivery increases exponentially,” he said.
But: “some of the really lower-level jobs will be compromised,” the GSAJ president added.
“Companies are still trying to figure out how and what kind of AI application they are going to use to improve their business. It’s a matter of repurposing certain functions so that the technology that we employ works for us in the way that we intended it to,” he said
He described the number of employees in the sector as “dynamic”, suggesting that the numbers rise and fall, but currently stood at about 50,000 across some 70 companies.
“It would be fair to say the numbers are flat, but we cannot rest on our laurels. Most BPO operators are not concerned about competition or technology, but about ensuring that the people coming into the industry are properly skilled, educated and socialised. That’s not a problem that the BPO industry by itself can solve,” Sinclair noted.
“We are having to take people with two or three (CSEC) subjects, while eight years ago when I started, we could comfortably pick, choose and refuse persons with a minimum of five subjects,” he said.
English (US) ·