PRESS RELEASES
City celebrates graduation of Cape Skills Project call centre trainees
27 October 2022
MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH, ALDERMAN JAMES VOS
This week, I had the opportunity to officiate at the Cape Skills and Employment Accelerator Project in celebrating the graduation of the first cohort of call centre industry trainees from the programme. More than 4 000 international-facing call centre jobs have been created in Cape Town this year.
The graduates were previously unemployed youths who had signed up for on-the-job training at call centres in and around Cape Town.
The project, which is funded primarily by the City and the National Skills Fund and facilitated by the City’s Special Purpose Vehicle, CapeBPO, is a first for a municipality and was designed to ensure skills pipelines for high-growth industries that will drive demand.
In my address to the graduates, I said that their newly acquired skills have earned them a spot in the booming local call centre industry. I further highlighted that South Africa was, for the second consecutive year, voted ‘the most favoured offshore CX delivery location in 2022’ by executives in the demand markets of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the USA. With Cape Town accounting for 65% of the country’s industry market share, opportunities are wide open.
Between January and September this year, 4 100 new international-facing call centre jobs have been created in Cape Town. Together with domestic-facing clients, more than 70 000 people now work in the sector in Cape Town and in 2021, the international BPO market operating in the city contributed around R14 billion to the local economy. With more companies scheduled to set up operations in Cape Town in the coming months, the call centre industry’s contribution to the local economy can only grow.
To apply for a spot in the programme, register on the Skills Portal platform.
Successful applicants are then selected for a 12-month programme with CapeBPO, during which time they receive accredited training, a monthly stipend and workplace experience at employer sites in Cape Town.
