There is a wide gender gap in Jamaica’s global services sector (GSS), which sector leaders are seeking to address by having more males being on boarded.
The current gap reflects a picture that is unlike any other seen when observing gender imbalances in most countries and industries.
Estimates from the Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ) indicate that the number of people employed within GSS in the island stands, as of February of 2023, at 59,000, where around 71 per cent are women with the rest (29%) being men.
Although those numbers could be construed as a positive development for the female workforce for most industries, the Jamaican authorities and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) find them most concerning. The GSS includes business process outsourcing (BPO) as well as the outsourcing of tech services (ITO) and knowledge processes (KPO).
“While women dominate employment in the sector, they are mostly in positions that could be replaced by artificial intelligence.”
Fernando Pavon, senior specialist – skills development at the IDB’s Labor Markets Division
In Jamaica, the vast majority (96.7%) of workers are employed in BPO while employment in KPO and ITO, which require more sophisticated processes and knowledge, represents 1.52 per cent and 0.82 per cent, respectively.
“While women dominate employment in the sector, they are mostly in positions that could be replaced by artificial intelligence,” said Fernando Pavon, senior specialist – skills development at the IDB’s Labor Markets Division.
Automation is inching its way into the Jamaican space and with it come hopes for the economic future of the island. As such, there is an urgency to upskill the GSS workforce, particularly women, before the impact of technology is felt too severely in the local labour ecosystem.
PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION
At the same time, there is the imperative of having more men involved, which is being addressed by the government in conjunction with the GSAJ and its international partners.
Jamaica’s economy is going through a process of transformation in which the country has built a burgeoning BPO ecosystem, leveraging low costs of labour and a workforce of native English speakers to export business process services into the US, Canada and other lucrative markets.
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