Jamaica-based business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, itelCX is on the move again in Guyana with plans to expand its operations in the South American/Caribbean territory.

This is part of a US$4 million Guyanese expansion, which will see the recruitment of upwards of 500 new staffers in its local operations, which has been steadily growing.                                                               

The BPO operator is very optimistic in its outlook on its business in Guyana and is upbeat about its future prospects. In fact, itelCX’s country manager in Guyana, Kailash Rao remarked that Guyana has “untapped talent” and is set for “explosive growth”.

In an effort to get the recruitment off to an early start, the Jamaican-based firm hosted a job fair in the capital city of Georgetown last week. This was itel’s first job fair after the 2021 acquisition, meaning the company might hire 1,000 more employees in the months to come.

However, questions have been raised about whether the talent pool in Guyana will be adequate for itel’s expansion plans. Nearshore Americas is reporting that with a population of around 783,000, Guyana does not provide the talent pool and scaling options of other regional countries. However, the regional news outlet says, nevertheless, Guyana, being an English-speaking country, has a strong literacy rate and shares a timezone with the US East Coast.

itel arrived in Guyana in July 2021 following its acquisition of a local call centre firm, Emerge BPO, which employed hundreds of people in the country and owned a seven-storied building in Georgetown.

In a 2021 interview with Nearshore Americas following the acquisition, itel’s founder Yoni Epstein commented, “the Guyana facility [of Emerge] gives us the greatest potential. It’s in the heart of Georgetown and is an 84,000-square-foot building. There are seven stories but at the moment only three are used. We can expand there, and fill an extra 1,500 seats.”