1 000 youth from Athlone prepared for job readiness in BPO sector

Today the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management, Alderman James Vos, attended the Cape Business Processing Outsourcing’s (CapeBPO) event, ‘The day of 1 000 opportunities’. At the event, 1000 youth were interviewed and recruited before being taken through a bridging training course to prepare them for work within the BPO sector. Alderman Vos was joined by councillors from the Athlone area. Read more below:

Cape Town is a high performance African business hub and an excellent location for businesses looking to launch their operations into Africa and beyond. The City’s focus is to support these high-growth sectors to drive demand that makes business sense.

Cape Town is fast becoming the call centre nucleus on the continent. That is why the City provides funding to one of our Strategic Business Partners, CapeBPO, to upskill and place residents in this sector.

Some 60 000 young people currently work in the BPO/contact centre sector. Over the past five years, 35 000 additional job opportunities have been created to service the international community.

Alderman Vos will also officially open a building, which has been turned into a fully-fledged and operational e-learning centre offering free training to the community and has been provided to CapeBPO free of charge. CapeBPO is also partnering with Future-ED, who run the accelerated work-readiness programme that’s recognised by CapeBPO, in this exciting initiative.

‘As a part of our commitment to grow this sector and develop those already employed, the City of Cape Town will partner with the National Skills Fund, under the Department of Higher Education and Training as well as industry, to fund training and stipends to candidates in this sector,’ said Alderman Vos.

The City is proud of our partnership with the National Skills Fund as well as our other partnerships which enables the upskilling and placement of young people in employment opportunities.

According to the 2020 Front Office BPO Omnibus Survey, conducted by Ryan Strategic Advisory, South Africa is one of the top two preferred BPO destinations in the world, after India.

‘I believe that for our City to compete globally and experience inclusive socio-economic growth, we must continue investing in skills and training for the sectors that are poised for substantial increases from employment and trade perspectives, instead of training for the sake of training.

‘The City has a wealth of services and targeted interventions to attract, retain and expand businesses. By working with high-growth sectors to implement proven strategies, we help businesses reach their full potential and employ more people, especially in these difficult times.

‘Our high-growth sectors as well as the targeted services and COVID-19 interventions offered by the City shows that Cape Town is open for business and there has never been a better time to invest in our beautiful city,’ said Alderman Vos.