Jamaica BPO executives say competitiveness, not AI, is sector’s biggest threat

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Two senior figures in Jamaica’s business process outsourcing industry are rejecting the Opposition’s warning that artificial intelligence could put the sector in danger of collapse, arguing instead that Jamaica’s bigger problem is its ability to compete internationally.

Their response comes after Opposition spokesman on productivity, efficiency and competitiveness Peter Bunting told the House of Representatives on Wednesday that AI could endanger the future of the industry, which provides work for about 50,000 Jamaicans. Bunting also said one of the country’s biggest BPO operators had reportedly reduced its staff complement by 40 per cent as more of its business processes became automated.

Wayne Sinclair, president of the Global Services Association of Jamaica and managing director of National Credit Adjusters Jamaica, urged caution in linking job cuts directly to AI. He accepted that the sector has been shrinking and that some businesses have relocated work from Jamaica, but said the deeper concern is the country’s weakening cost position.

Sinclair pointed to higher expenses for security, transport and electricity, along with concerns about whether the labour force is entering the industry with the skills employers require.

“The labour pool is increasingly coming to the marketplace with lower and lower qualification standards,” Sinclair told the Jamaica Observer, noting that countries such as India and the Philippines can often offer college-trained workers at much lower salary levels.

“So get off the artificial intelligence doomsday bandwagon for a little bit and try to focus a little bit more on the real issues facing our industry. And that is just the overall competitiveness of the sector, cost of doing business, and other issues related to the challenges that we have with our workforce,” the GSAJ head said.

ITEL Chief Executive Officer Yoni Epstein took a similar position, saying political figures have continued to suggest that AI will destroy BPO employment without producing proof that this has happened in Jamaica.

“It is genuinely striking that for three straight years now our politicians — on both sides — have been sounding the alarm about AI wiping out Jamaica’s BPO sector, and yet not a single Jamaican BPO job has actually been lost to AI. Not one that I can point to,” Epstein said.

Epstein said Jamaica is instead losing work to rival outsourcing destinations that are offering clients lower costs and better execution.

“We have been losing work to the Philippines, India, South Africa, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala — destinations that consistently deliver better cost structures, stronger operational efficiency, and frankly, better service,” Epstein stressed.

Sinclair also said Jamaica has fallen short in promoting the outsourcing sector overseas. “As a country, we’re really not doing anything to promote our sector,” he said, adding that Jamaica has become “out of sight” in the international market.

Epstein said the difficulties facing the industry were already present before AI became a major concern. He listed electricity costs, telecoms costs, labour preparedness, the lack of a clear industrial policy for the sector, Jamaica’s failure to advance into higher-value work, and the industry’s long-running dependence on English-language capability as its main selling point.

“Our problems are structural: power costs, telecoms costs, workforce readiness, the absence of a coherent industrial policy for the sector, our failure to move up the value chain into higher-margin work, a chronic inability to differentiate on anything other than English-language proficiency, which is no longer enough,” he underscored.

Rather than treating AI as the enemy, Epstein said the technology could help Jamaica regain lost ground.

“AI, properly understood, is not what is going to kill us; AI is actually the single best lever we have to claw back competitiveness,” Epstein said.

“The honest conversation Parliament should be having is not how do we protect our people from AI, it is why are we still losing work to countries that figured out cost, quality, and a balanced legal framework before AI was even a factor, and how do we use AI to leapfrog them,” he added.

Sinclair said his own operation is looking at AI as a productivity tool, not as a way to remove workers.

“We’re not losing jobs to AI. We’re only enhancing the capacity of our workers to do more with less,” he said.

He said one AI system now under review could allow staff to handle “60 per cent more” work, which would help the company manage additional debt collection portfolios and grow the business.