Gauteng Premier David Makhura says Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has an enormous potential for labour absorption.  

Addressing a group of businesspeople during the Business Process Service Action Lab in Parktown yesterday, Premier Makhura said in partnership with business, the provincial government wants to unlock the potential of the BPS sector. 

He said the BPO sector was one of the Gauteng’s strongest opportunities for closing the gap between unemployed youth and the needs of companies. 

“The business process outsourcing sector provides critical services to companies and economic opportunities to job seekers in Gauteng.  We are putting it back into the agenda of the provincial government,” said Makhura.

The purpose of the Action Lab is to build a leadership coalition willing to collaborate in the growth of business process services that can contribute to growth of the Gauteng economy, and to co-develop an action plan for delivering on any agreed initiatives.

Makhura said Gauteng has been working with business through the provincial government’s initiative, Tshepo 500 000 which is an entrepreneurship and job creation umbrella programme aimed at training, skilling, placing and mentoring 500 000 young people.

“At least by 2019, we should have touched 500 000 lives of young people.  Currently 86 000 young people have been placed and 130 000 have been trained.  Let’s do more together, our partnership with Harambee is to broaden the skills base and the competitiveness of the environment,” he said.

Speaking at the same meeting, Executive Director of Yellowwoods and Harambee Chairperson, Nicola Galombik said business have been fragmented and this was an opportunity to work together as a collective to ensure that this initiative was a  success.

“We have all the right ingredients as a province, it is now in our hands as a collective to do this but it requires a collective action,” said Galombik. 

In addition, the meeting agreed that it was critical to equip young people with correct skills.  It further suggested that there was a need to align curriculum in schools and colleges in an effort to prepare the youth for the workplace.