BERBICIANS turned out in large numbers to sign up for jobs at the Teleperformance recruitment drive held at the University on Guyana Tain Campus, Region Six, on Saturday. Recruitment Manager, Raybourne Bowman said the company is looking to employ at least 1,000 persons at its various locations in Guyana by year end.

Prime Minister Brigadier(ret’d), Mark Phillips, who was present at the recruitment drive, urged those gathered to make use of the opportunity and pointed out that the government is committed to ensuring that everyone has access to employment.

He noted that since the government’s accession to office, it has liberalised the telecommunications sector, which has in turned opened doors for competition and ultimately making more opportunities available to citizens.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the Public Private Partnership in action and here today at this job fair, lot of opportunity to create jobs in Region Six. Through the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, we have an expansion of the infrastructure and now we have the technology where basically you can work from anywhere. So Teleperformance is here with us and at the end of this process I know many of you will be employed, some may be employed to work from an established building and some of you will be given the equipment and the training so that you could start working almost immediately from your home. Here in Guyana we have the technology now and through Public Private Partnership, we are going to every region embracing the technology and providing employment for the people.”

He noted the government through the part-time recruitment initiative has so far employed 4,000 persons in Regions Six and through Teleperformance’s recruitment drive, more will be employed.

Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh commended the company for the initiative and noted that the government is supportive of the ICT sector and encourages any initiative that provides meaningful employment to citizens.

Since assuming power two years ago, the government has operationalised a call centre in Linden and two such facilities are slated for Berbice: one at Palmyra and the other in the Upper-Corentyne. Work on the facility at Palmyra has commenced and is expected to be completed within three months. The centre is scheduled to be operational by early 2023. Dr. Singh reiterated that with the two call centres up and running, they will provide a minimum of 300 jobs.

These centres will be built by the government but will be operated by private companies.

“This is also part of changing the job arena. You know there is a very traditional job market that the Guyanese economy has become accustomed to over the years, very traditional types jobs but as we undergo this transformation that the President has been speaking about, this is part of that transformation to new types of jobs, new types of skills being required for those new type of jobs. And it’s important that young people, potential job seekers prepare themselves for these new job types. This is why the programmers GOAL scholarship is so important because the world is not static, the world is changing rapidly so it’s important that Guyanese adapt in order to prepare themselves for those change,” he said.

The minister also noted that where necessary, the government is prepared to provide training and has already commenced the process.