Africa is forecast to create up to 1.5m new business process outsourcing jobs over the next six years, with South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt poised to benefit.

The business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in Africa – currently employing 1.2m full-time equivalent posts across more than 400 contact centres handling international outsourcing contracts – is set for exponential growth. A recent report by CCI Global, a prominent player in African outsourcing, projects that the continent’s BPO workforce will more than double by 2030. This surge is fuelled by the growing demand from global companies seeking outsourced customer service.

The report, conducted in collaboration with research firm Everest Group, forecasts the creation of up to 1.5m new BPO jobs in Africa over the next six years. South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt are poised to reap significant benefits, while emerging hubs such as Ghana, Ethiopia, and Rwanda are also positioned for substantial growth.

Several factors are fueling this expansion. Foremost among them is the fact that Africa offers significant cost advantages, with labour costs up to 80% lower than Western markets. Additionally, nearly half (45%) of companies surveyed report that African governments are actively creating a business-friendly environment through tax breaks, infrastructure development, and workforce training programs. Africa’s young, multilingual population further strengthens its appeal as an outsourcing destination.

Access to motivated talent pool

Martin Roe, CEO of CCI Global, a major outsourcing firm, attributes Africa’s booming BPO sector partly to the continent’s high youth unemployment. In an interview with African Business, Roe explains: “Our view as a company is that talent is actually quite well distributed globally, but opportunities are not, and unfortunately in many African countries highly educated and motivated young people can’t get a job.”

BPO companies like CCI Global are creating significant new private-sector jobs across Africa, Roe says, benefiting from this motivated talent pool. The firm has about 15,000 employees across South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Egypt.

“What characterises all those markets for us is the availability of highly talented people to be able to deliver better outcomes,” says Roe, highlighting metrics such as sales, conversion, net promoter score and customer satisfaction.

CCI Global primarily serves the US market, the largest BPO market globally, as well as the UK, Australia and other mature global markets. “We’ve been building our business in Africa since 2006 and 70% of our business is servicing the American market,” he says, emphasising that CCI Global specialises in handling complex customer interactions for major brands. CCI Global has about 80 clients drawn from sectors such as telecoms and media, high-end retail, financial services, and the new economy and high-growth technology businesses.

“The business process outsourcing industry has traditionally focused on low-cost, high-volume interactions between companies and consumers. However, automation, self-service options, chatbots and AI are rapidly reducing the need for such services,” Roe explains. As a result, the remaining interactions tend to be “complicated and highly emotional”.

According to Roe, traditional offshore locations such as the Philippines or India, and even source markets such as the US, the UK, and Australia, lack the specific skill set required for these complex, emotional interactions.

“We think the kind of humans that can handle complex and emotional interactions exist in pretty large numbers in Africa.”

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