This weekend, Alderman James Vos, the Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, cut the ribbon at the official opening of the City-funded BPO Sunday School in Athlone.
The school will be administered by CapeBPO, the City’s Special Purpose Vehicle, in the Cape Flats areas.
‘Thanks to the City’s commitment towards skills development and investment promotion of high growth industries such as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Cape Town has become an internationally sought-after location for businesses and investors in the sector. Through initiatives such as the BPO Sunday School which is an addition to the Schools programme, we are exposing school leavers to the huge opportunities available to them. In this way, we are giving young people tangible hope for a career that will go places,’ said Alderman Vos.
Unemployed youth will embark on a crash course over three weeks and in the fourth week there will be an open industry recruitment. They will cover modules targeting work readiness and conversational fluency among other key skills.
‘The school’s opening coincides with some exciting news: between July and September this year, 2 993 new international call centre jobs were recorded. Meanwhile, the forecasted new jobs anticipated for October to December is a whopping 3 475. This sector now employs around 80 000 people with 60 000 of them servicing international clients. The BPO market contributes billions of rands to Cape Town’s economy and with new call centres popping up all across the metro, such gains will continue and the opportunities will grow,’ said Alderman Vos.
