Manoj SharmaOn July 7, 2026, Jamaica’s premier industry body, GSAJ (Global Services Association of Jamaica), did something it hadn’t done in more than a decade: it beckoned the group’s founding president. This time, the call was urgent — to rejuvenate the country’s revered outsourcing sector.
And Yoni Epstein, Founding Chairman and CEO of the country’s largest homegrown CX provider, itelCX, and the new GSAJ President, is confident he can help revive the sector, which grew from 12,500 employees when he took over in 2012 to 60,000 at its peak.
But somewhere between best-value-for-money outsourcing destinations like India and the Philippines, and highest-value, high-quality-work and nearshore destinations like Mexico and Costa Rica, Jamaica lost its edge, and over 20,000 jobs were shed in recent years.
Yet Epstein remains sober-minded. He says even if the industry can bring back 10,000 jobs, it’ll add a billion dollars to the economy — and he will consider that a job done. But he knows it’s easier said than done.
Considering the evolution the outsourcing industry has seen over the years, the fight to bring in business is no longer limited to LatAm and South Asia; new challengers like Egypt and South Africa have emerged as dominant ‘mid-shoring’ players.
Epstein has a plan and clear intentions — but the question is, can what can GSAJ do to bring tangible results? Read edited excerpts of my conversation with Yoni Epstein to understand his rebuilt strategy:
Manoj Sharma: Congratulations on being appointed as the Chairman of GSAJ again. Tell me about the BPO, outsourcing, and IT industry 14 years ago when you founded the organization versus now. What has changed in Jamaica over these years?
Yoni Epstein: When I first took office in 2012, the industry was at about 12,500 employees. We had a small group of call center operators. The government was just starting to get interested in the industry. Our biggest issue at the time was marketing the sector, as well as finding capacity to have purpose-built space ready for the growth.
At the height of the industry, we saw over a million square feet of space being built and saw many large, reputable, foreign-based BPO operators invest in Jamaica. Post-COVID, we saw over 60,000 people working in the sector, compared to today when we have seen a dramatic loss of about 20,000 jobs.
Some of that is caused by seasonal work in the e-commerce space descending upon cheaper destinations. Jamaica has become more expensive over recent times; some of that is sheer inflationary costs. Some of it is that we have not seen the devaluation of the dollar at the pace it occurred between 2012 and 2021, compared to 2022 up until now in 2026.
The competitive edge has been lost. We also stopped marketing the industry as much, given its more mature state. The rising costs of doing business, security, and productivity concerns really drove away 20,000 people you see us talking about.
Manoj Sharma: If the industry has lost so many jobs and is on a decline, what made you say yes this time? Do you have specific plans in mind?
Yoni Epstein: Being a major player, I have built my business around the nearshore region, and I have seen significant growth over the last 14 years in business.
I think the nearshore still has a lot to offer. The nearshore will always be a part of the delivery model for companies. There are a few things we need to do in Jamaica: we need to retool from the perspective of how operators, large and small, can retool their business and incorporate AI to make them efficient and deliver better service.
I don’t think Jamaica needs to be a place for everything. We need to focus on what we are good at, what we have capitalized on over the years, and deliver that service at a value where people are not necessarily looking at cost because of the efficiency.
We must never forget the value of being nearshore versus farshore, or even what they are calling midshore in Africa. One of the major areas where we have faltered in recent times is not doing enough to market and promote the benefits of this industry. That is where a lot of our effort and emphasis needs to go to reignite the fire of Jamaica.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go back to 60,000 employees. If we are providing services in similar jobs today plus higher-value services, you could make it back to 50,000 and generate over a billion dollars of foreign exchange earnings for the country, which is still a massive economic generator for our nation. So that is effectively where we should focus: marketing, retooling, and setting a target not necessarily around heads, but getting the industry back over a billion US dollars a year in foreign exchange earnings.
Manoj Sharma: How do you plan to make Jamaica recover the cost advantage it once had? What are your plans to bring back business or attract companies that are exploring mature markets and want to move beyond Mexico or Latin American countries?
Yoni Epstein: We need to stop selling just a seat. We have been focused on the cost of a seat. Buyers are not purchasing a chair anymore. They are purchasing efficiency, reliability, and your ability to increase sales.
As an industry, we have to look at how we can use technology to drive greater efficiencies where you may need fewer people but generate more value. That is where companies will see the value.
Achieving that has to come through marketing. We have to drive to the market that Jamaica has taken a hard decision that we are retooling — not only in personnel, but in advancing technology through the advent of artificial intelligence. We are marketing that you’ll get a better overall total cost of ownership because of reduced attrition and absenteeism, and the overall experience to the end user is going to be greater than just the ability to purchase seats. We are not a purchase-seat destination, and we have to differentiate that in our marketing approaches.
Manoj Sharma: Are stronger incentives and marketing a competitiveness problem or a productivity issue? And where do you see the country suffering the most?
Yoni Epstein: I think productivity is killing competitiveness. When you have high absenteeism and high attrition, you technically need 20% to 30% more heads to get the job done. If we can resolve that issue, I think we become far more competitive than any other destination.
Manoj Sharma: In your position, it is one thing to ask your own company to get better tools, be efficient, and introduce major changes, but it is a different task altogether to bring sweeping changes and reforms to the entire industry to bring in 10,000-plus jobs. You can’t convince every company to make investments or bring those changes because everybody has their own constraints. How do you plan to bring those changes?
Yoni Epstein: Jamaica is made up of a mixture of large, medium, and small operators. The large operators — like IBEX, Concentrix, Continuum, and Conduent —are in a world of their own. They are going to do what they have to do as businesses to ensure they meet the efficiency needs of their clients to make Jamaica work for them. In many cases, they are certainly leading the charge.
The greater bulk of the sector comes from medium-to-small operators, which are smaller US operators or medium-to-small Jamaican operators. That is where we as an association can really touch and make a difference from a productivity perspective.
Manoj Sharma: If a provider underperforms, the market punishes them, and the company makes losses, but at the country level, that directly translates to job losses. Does that asymmetry change what you think the government owes to the industry, or is it purely an industry problem?
Yoni Epstein: The government plays its role from that perspective through the benefit of the Special Economic Zone Authority, and that is where that value comes into play.
Manoj Sharma: Does the country offer incentives or perks for companies to operate from Jamaica?
Yoni Epstein: Yes, it does.
Manoj Sharma: If the government is doing its part with special economic zones and offering incentives, but jobs are still down by at least 20,000, how do you plan to convince smaller local players — where the association has a bigger say — to work harder, generate more jobs, bring in more efficiency, and increase revenue?
Yoni Epstein: To me, the biggest thing first is marketing. Many of the shows that call centers and countries attend, Jamaica has not been present at for years. As you can appreciate being a journalist yourself, unless you are in the market talking about the success, growth, and benefits of your destination, people forget about you.
If you think about 2012 to 2026, there are a lot of people who used to sell into Jamaica who are probably no longer working for those companies or no longer part of companies that outsource. You are dealing with a new group of buyers in the market.
To be fair, Africa has done a phenomenal job in marketing itself, albeit they are almost the same distance from North America as the Philippines and India. A lot of the work from Jamaica has gone to Africa because we have not done a good job in recent times of stating the benefits and value of staying nearshore.
So a big lift for us is really reigniting that fire to say that Jamaica is open, speak about the benefits, and the “why Jamaica”, which will drive interest toward the country once again.
Manoj Sharma: In your recent comments, you talked about telecom, power, and disaster preparedness, and mentioned making those part of national economic infrastructure to ramp them up for the outsourcing sector. Realistically, on what timeline does Jamaica get that?
Yoni Epstein: When you look at the industry as a whole, stats show that by 2030, it will be over a $500 billion industry. When I look at the Philippines, India, Africa, and other areas in Central and South America, they are all growing mid-single digits as they have in the past. Therefore, there is fundamentally a problem in Jamaica.
While costs have increased, we are around the same prices as our partners in Central and South America. So, albeit higher than Africa and the Philippines, we are still competitive in the nearshore space. That fundamental issue comes down to getting out there, stating that you are open for business, presenting your value proposition, and encouraging clients to come back to Jamaica.
Manoj Sharma: Beyond productivity, what else do you think Jamaica may be doing wrong, apart from blaming it on AI or natural disasters like hurricanes?
Yoni Epstein: We indeed had two years of back-to-back hurricanes. One did not have a major effect on the main operating areas, but last year, Melissa was a huge loss to us. However, the industry rebounded relatively quickly from the storm. We have clients who said they couldn’t believe we were back in operation two weeks after such a major disaster.
The pressure on the industry cooled because people expected it to just continue growing naturally, and now everyone recognizes that there has been a contraction. All eyes are back on what needs to be done: whether that involves efficiency, attrition, or managing the country’s low unemployment rate.
Facilities and technology — in terms of the cost of data — are no longer our main issues. It is about how we build this industry to be a career rather than just a job.
Manoj Sharma: You mentioned that the local outsourcing industry can win back at least 10,000 jobs. Apart from focusing on efficiency, what concretely will it take to convince clients who left to come back?
Yoni Epstein: Efficiency drives performance, and seeing, hearing, and knowing that performance is going to help drive the success of the business nationally. Again, it comes back to being in the market, speaking about the successes and growth, and demonstrating how we are going to navigate through an ever-changing sector.
It is the same playbook that many others around the world are using.
Manoj Sharma: You have made several comments stating that AI is not hurting the industry and that it is not a factor in job losses in Jamaica. How do you see an entry-level job changing five years down the line? How will that entry-level role differ from what it is today if AI is not a negative factor?
Yoni Epstein: Everyone has raced to other parts of the world for price, which is where you put entry-level positions that involve a level of monotony or doing the same thing over and over again. Most of those jobs are not in Jamaica.
AI is going to impact certain things, just like other tech advancements over the years impacted the industry but drove another level of business. While it will impact some jobs, those in Jamaica are already more complex roles than just order-taking and order-management positions seen in cheaper jurisdictions.
That is partly why I said Jamaica needs to retool and look at higher-value roles that still require communicating with people. As businesses continue to grow, they will continue to need more people to work for them, and that is where efficiency and the use of AI come in. Call centers like ours need to prepare themselves for simple things, like having AI automatically score QA. It gives you a much larger sample size, and while you may reduce the need for QA agents, you still need coaches to train the agents. You are providing a higher-value service, but you still need people to coach and develop.
Similarly, with agent-assist models in the AI world today, the AI can write notes in the CRM after a call. An agent doesn’t have to spend three or four minutes in after-call work; they can move on to the next call because the AI does it in 30 seconds. That is where the value of technology comes into play, and that’s where the value of the human will remain in higher-value.
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