600-SEATER CALL CENTRE PLANNED FOR FREE STATE
Interest in South Africa's business processing and outsourcing (BPO) sector remained high, with a new 600-seater call centre planned for the Free State, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa announced.
Work in establishing call centres in far-flung areas had got off to a good start, and Mpahlwa believed the momentum could be sustained.
He said that the Free State call centre would first be piloted with a smaller project.
Government had held a BPO conference in Durban in July, which showed that interest in the sector remained "very high", Mpahlwa told a media briefing in Pretoria.
He described the BPO sector as one of the "low-hanging fruits" in which government was implementing its industrial policy.
All 1 000 trainees of the State's Monyetla work readiness inception programme had been absorbed by the industry, and government would be training a further 2 000 people this year, Mpahlwa said.
The programme takes unemployed matriculants and graduates through a process of acquiring work readiness skills, which involves training learners for the workplace and equipping them with life skills. Under the programme, government hopes to train 30 000 learners over a four-year period.
South Africa saw BPO and call centres as effective job creation vehicles, particularly in poor rural areas.
In July, President Thabo Mbeki reported that BPO investments worth R658-million have been made, and that the sector had created some 9 132 jobs.
Last week, South Africa's biggest bank, ABSA, announced that it had become the first investor in the BPO cluster of the Coega Industrial Development Zone, with an investment that would create 94 new jobs.
In 2007, TeleTech became established a call centre facility in Cape Town, under the DTI's BPO incentive
By: Creamer Media
Issue date: 11/08/2008 | Creamer Media
