Jamaica call centre to employ 1,000

(Jamaica Observer) One thousand jobs will be created when the Convergys Corporation opens its first call centre in Jamaica next year, Dr Christopher Tufton, the minister of industry, investment and commerce, announced yesterday at a press briefing in Kingston.

“This new investment is here because of the professional facilitation efforts of Jampro, a key agency of the ministry, working in partnership with a number of other agencies as well as the HEART Trust/NTA, to make it a reality,” Tufton said. “This did not come easy. We currently operate in a very difficult global environment; Jampro did a great job in presenting a compelling value proposition to these investors.”

Convergys is a leader in integrated billing and is one of the largest agent-assisted customer service companies in the world, employing approximately 70,000 people.

Tufton said Montego Bay was chosen as the call centre’s site because of what Convergys deemed its status as a “top tourist destination and the strong customer service orientation” of the labour force there.

Noting several other favourable factors, the minister said he was confident of the nation’s attractiveness as an information communications technology and a business process outsourcing option.

“Jamaica has a near-shore advantage to the largest consumer market in the world. It is the third largest English-speaking country within the Americas, behind the US and Canada. (It has) a talented labour pool with strong cultural compatibility (and) a reliable, sophisticated telecommunications infrastructure,” Tufton told the press briefing.

“These attributes, when combined with our ability to promote, facilitate and sustain these important job-creating investments, will drive our goal of doubling the size of the sector in the next three to five years,” he added.

The sector currently employs approximately 11,500 people.

In securing the investment, the ministry, through its investment arm Jampro, had to show the corporation that Jamaica has the necessary resources, including qualified labour, to facilitate its entry.