BPO sector yields a myriad of benefits

STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND ASSET MANAGEMENT, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS.

The City’s investment in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector has yielded a myriad of benefits including investments to the value of over R4,7 billion for Cape Town.

Through the City’s partnership with our strategic business partner BPeSA we have been able to attract investment, create jobs and develop much needed skills.

I am delighted to announce that together we are increasing the employment numbers in this sector. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of officially opening a new floor at Teleperformance South Africa, located in the CBD. This initiative will create an additional 350 employment opportunities in our city. Although the new recruits will be locally based, they will service a UK client.

Teleperformance South Africa opened its doors in Cape Town in 2007. The organisation doubled the number of people employed over the past 12 months and projects further growth over the next 18 months. It is the largest global provider of outsourced services with a workforce of 300 000 spread across the globe. Of this, 780 members are based in Cape Town.

Occasions like this make me excited about the economic possibilities of this city. As an opportunity city, we are committed to creating an enabling environment for economic growth and job creation.

BPeSA has done phenomenal work over the years to secure new investment for the City with major companies choosing Cape Town as a base for their operations. In turn, this has created numerous jobs for our residents.

We identified BPO as a catalytic sector for the City, and over the past five years the sector has not disappointed us. We have experienced phenomenal growth and the partnership has generated investment to the value of R4,7 billion over the last five years. In addition, the sector currently employs 59 000 people in the Western Cape.

The BPO sector is truly living up to the projections of being a key growth sector as 2018 saw a record year of close to 6 000 jobs created.

I can confidently say that Cape Town is open for business!