French-based business process outsourcing (BPO) company, Teleperformance is going big in Guyana with plans to double its workforce in the South American/Caribbean territory.

This planned expansion comes five years after launching operations in Guyana, which was the fastest growing economy in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its global economic assessment. Teleperformance is set to open another delivery centre in the country, as its current office in Georgetown has “run out of space”, according to a local publication, Newsroom Guyana.

Teleperformance’s CEO for Guyana and Nicaragua, Luis Barretto made the announcement of the expansion at an organised event last Monday (December 6) to mark the company’s five years of operations in Guyana.

According to Barretto, “We are proactively sourcing for a second facility. My intent is to add about 600 to 800 additional workstations and those 600 to 800 more workstations could easily become 1500 more jobs for locals.”

Teleperformance has currently employed around 1,200 people in Guyana, with almost all of them serving the company’s American clients.

Barretto disclosed that the French-based BPO has devised a ‘new business model’ for Guyanese operations, expressing confidence in securing service contracts from at least 30 US entities.

Guyana’s English-speaking population was the main draw for Teleperformance to set up operations in the country. Guyana is the only country in South America, where English is the first language.

In addition, it has a stable political climate and a less expensive labour force.

In a 2015 interview with Nearshore Americas, Mark Pfeiffer, who was then an executive vice president at Teleperformance, had emphasized that the (US) market would be “served well with the Guyanese accent.”

Currently, around 50 per cent of its global workforce is now working from home due to the pandemic.