Invest Saint Lucia Hands Over Second Factory Shell to itelbpo In Less Than A Year
In July 2020, Invest Saint Lucia handed over a fully retrofitted factory shell to the Jamaican homegrown business process outsourcer, itelbpo. Today, April 14, 2021, less than a year after the first handing over, the two companies exchange the keys for a second building located in the St Lucia Freezone in Vieux Fort. When the first building was completed, there were some 400 new jobs projected, but by the end of 2020, itelbpo had 450 Saint Lucians in employment. Now, the outsourcer expects to house 350 new employees in the second building as the industry continues to expand worldwide.
Invest Saint Lucia and itelbpo signed an MOU in January 2020, and since then the outsourcer’s commitment and dedication to Saint Lucia as an investment destination has been renewed even amid the challenges of a pandemic and global economic crisis. itelbpo also comes into Saint Lucia as a model outsourcer which uses employee experience as the driver for overall success of the company. There is also a mandate to continue to operate as one of the largest employers in the Caribbean and itelbpo is well on its way to employing 5,000 agents within the region.
itelbpo also commits to being a responsible corporate player in the Caribbean and in March signed an agreement with the Government of Jamaica to handle quality vaccination registrations for Jamaican citizens. The company also had a significant contribution towards specialised Covid-19 prevention protocols for the BPO sector inSaint Lucia. At Wednesday’s ceremony, itelbpo CEO, Yoni Epstein said, “Saint Lucia has been the prized possession of itelbpo starting over the last 12 months. Today we are taking the keys for yet another building that will provide jobs for Saint Lucians in Vieux Fort…ISL has facilitated us from day one which makes it very easy to start an investment in any country. They are part of the reason why we invest in Saint Lucia and why we continue to expandโthe main reason is the people of Saint Lucia. We have seen record attrition rates, record low absenteeism rates, record high KPI results to our clients out of Saint Lucia today.”
During very brief remarks, CEO of Invest Saint Lucia, Roderick Cherry detailed the experience in facilitating itelbpo so far and expressed his hope for the company to continue to expand and provide quality employment for Saint Lucians. He said, “This is not just all about call centre jobs. This will evolve into high tech vocations and highly transferrable skills. It’s noteworthy that 20 local contractors were employed during the construction period of these two facilities creating about 250 construction jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic. “With about 800 employees presently, itelbpo will be the second largest business process outsourcing employer in Saint Lucia. The company hosted two job fairs with Invest Saint Lucia in July 2020 and continues to recruit new staff on an ongoing basis. Epstein said on Wednesday that the company has a goal of employing 1,200 Saint Lucians.
Image: Kieran Long (centre), Senior Vice President at itelbpo, flanked by the investments team from Invest Saint Lucia.
