The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has beaten its target of creating 6 000 jobs in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, as more than 9 000 people have been employed by the industry so far this year.
The sector's umbrella body, Business Process enabling SA (BPeSA), expects the entire industry will have added 30 000 new jobs by 2016. The BPO industry employs more than 40 000 people, of which approximately 11 500 are as a result of foreign direct investment, according to the 2014 BPeSA Key Indicator Report.
The DTI notes in the Adjusted Estimates of National Expenditure that the creation of an additional 3 181 jobs was because it received more applications than expected for BPO centres.
The department supports the sector through an incentive scheme, launched in 2011, which aims to trim operating costs by up to 20% as it pays investors R112 000 for each full-time job created and maintained.
In the past year, 3 400 jobs were created in the Western Cape alone, according to a recent statement issued by BPeSA. The umbrella body notes foreign investment continues to drive growth across the industry and has accounted for the bulk of jobs created over the past two years.
Companies such as Amazon, American Airlines, BP, Lufthansa, 02, Shell and Swiss International all use the Western Cape - the largest concentration of BPO centres in SA - as a global base to service their customers, BPeSA CEO Gareth Pritchard has noted.
Most of the foreign investment into the industry is driven by the UK, with 63.3% of the offshore market, a 1.9% increase from 2013; followed by the US and Australia at 11.5% and 9.4%, respectively. In total, 88.2% of offshore work in the Western Cape is conducted in English, a 6.2% increase from 2013.
Financial services accounts for the highest proportion of agents, at 41.7% of the market, a 0.5% increase from 2013, while, within the offshore market, telecoms is the fastest growing sector at 37.3%, a 23.2% increase from 2013.
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