St Lucia’s government is giving high priority towards getting its business process outsourcing (BPO) sector ready for growth in the coming months, as the world begins to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Allen Chastanet believes that the pandemic represents a watershed moment for the outsourcing industry in his country given that global outsourcing market giants like the Philippines saw their total dominance falter, while minnows like St Lucia are being given the opportunity to grow.

Chastanet told Nearshore Americas recently, in an exclusive interview with that publication, that, “the coronavirus outbreak produced a big opportunity for us. The health protocols adopted in St Lucia worked well, particularly for call centres”.

He argued that “Jamaica struggled at the beginning of the pandemic and many companies wanted to diversify out of Jamaica and countries in Asia as well. At that point, we were able to leverage our previous success and things fell in place pretty quickly”.

The St Lucian prime minister made the point that, even before COVID-19, the BPO industry was a significant GDP contributor and employment creator in the country with companies including Itelbpo and Ojo Labs expanding their operations to the Eastern Caribbean island. 

Attracting BPO companies to St Lucia

During the interview with Nearshore Americas, Chastanet outlined how he became personally involved in the development of various BPO operations in St Lucia, meeting with David Rubin, the founder of Ojo Labs, and convincing the company to start operations on the island.

By attracting Ojo, the St Lucian government was able to introduce the artificial intelligence sector in the island and strategically position it in the southern part of the country, which didn’t have developers at the time. 

For many years, conventional thinking around the BPO sector was that industry decision makers were not particularly attracted to countries with small populations but St Lucia, with an estimated total land area of 236 sq. miles and a population of just 183,627, is making progress to reverse those beliefs by boosting its workforce through the efficient use of its limited space. As a part of this effort, the government has been rehabilitating old warehouses built during the 1970s and 1980s for the Caribbean Basin Initiative as offices for BPO operators. 

According to Chastanet: “If we’re going to fulfill our potential, it is about output per square mile. We had to find the way to monetise the potential in a limited space and call centers and outsourcing in general was a great place to begin.”

He added that the island is also trying to adapt its immigration policies to attract qualified workers.

At the same time, the country’s large diaspora in places like Miami, Toronto or London presents a great opportunity to expand the talent pool. For the St Lucian prime minister, the positive actions taken by BPO companies to maintain the environment and conditions to support employees during the COVID-19 pandemic have improved the public perception of the sector.

As a result, St Lucia’s government is hopeful that this reputation, built on good salaries and career opportunities, will intrigue many St Lucians abroad to come back to the island. Chastanet explained that the salaries people are getting in the industry are comparable and perhaps better than those of the hospitality sector.

He remarked that, “many people have taken the opportunity presented by COVID-19 to migrate from the hospitality sector. We’ve seen an extremely positive experience in Saint Lucia. Every single time that these companies open up a recruitment phase it ends up oversubscribed.”

Providing incentives to grow the sector

In the past, St Lucia has been criticised for not providing strong incentives for the BPO sector but more recently the government has been working to attract international jobs and facilitate investor entry into the island, an example being the Headquarters Act, introduced by the Chastanet administration to help facilitate companies setting up headquarter operations in St Lucia. 

“We’re allowing companies to open up international or regional services headquarters in St Lucia. They pay no corporate tax, no work permits required and their employees, foreigners and locals, don’t pay any personal income tax. We stole the model from Switzerland, where the UN has 40,000 people working in Geneva under those same circumstances,” the prime minister advised.

St Lucia is looking for businesses that can generate greater output in a smaller space, and the country is ready to offer the right motivations and Chastanet believes there is greater potential down the road. Given this, the government is now looking to build more BPO centers to attract more business to various communities in St Lucia. 

In concluding, Chastanet said, “We’re looking to expand… . We recognised that the BPO industry as a very vibrant sector and one that can contribute significantly to the economic development of our country. The BPO industry is massively attractive to produce greater output per square mile.”