Jamaican govt sets target to provide over 70,000 Digital service jobs by 2025

The Jamaican government has set the target to provide more than 70,000 Digital service jobs within the upcoming five years, the Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce – Audley Shaw, noted.

The Minister cited, “Jamaica has a “multisectoral approach” to improve our – technological infrastructure. In 2021, the Ministry of Industry, Investment & Commerce outlined the framework for a national 5-year global digital services strategy which is made with the motive to – expand the industry. The strategy is likely to have a significant impact on employment, by providing 70,000 jobs by the year of 2025″.

Shaw further noted that the global digital services sector is witnessing a constant growth and at the present time is having around 70 operators in the market”.

He emphasized that “This global services digital services sector project, which is being driven by – JAMPRO – (Jamaica Promotions Corporation) as the executing agency, is the primary driver to upskill Jamaicans in the high-value technical & professional skills needed in digital services”.

Following his above statement, Shaw highlighted that this is how the Jamaican government, along with operators and stakeholders in the private sector, promotes steps to offer services beyond business processing by developing various skills and capabilities of the companies who offer services under the global sector services program.

Shaw emphasized that the crucial goal is to change the structure of the sector towards higher-skilled jobs, which will eventually assist the sector to grow to a huge extent. With this, the Minister outlined that numerous training programmes are also there that works with the vision to facilitate promotion of the sector & to enable training of thousands of Jamaicans in new digital skills of a higher-value skillset.

“The government wants to enhance that ratio to – 60/40, thereby expanding and making further inroads into higher-technology-oriented jobs in the digital services sector,” he added, noting that while the current ratio between the business process outsourcing jobs & knowledge process outsourcing jobs is around 80/20.