South Africa’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector — call centres, tech support, claims processing and customer service — created 26 346 new jobs in 2025, the highest annual total since 2018. And Nelson Mandela Bay (Gqeberha) is being positioned as the sector’s next big growth hub, alongside Cape Town, Johannesburg and Umhlanga.
According to the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, the Eastern Cape’s share of new global business services jobs jumped from 251 in 2024 to 1 612 in 2025 — with the Coega SEZ’s purpose-built BPO Park leading the charge. South Africa now ranks fifth in the world for outsourcing talent, and industry body BPESA has set a target of 500 000 sector jobs by 2030.
What this means for SA job seekers
1. BPO is the best entry-level door in the country right now. Young people made up about 90% of new hires in 2025, and roughly 30% came from households where nobody was previously employed. Most roles — customer service, sales, lead generation, content moderation, virtual assistance — do not require prior experience, just strong English and computer literacy.
2. The Bay is where the next wave lands. If you are in the Eastern Cape, watch Gqeberha closely: investors are actively looking for the city’s affordable office space and talent pool. New call-centre operations also pull in support jobs — security, transport, hospitality and professional services.
3. Skills beat qualifications here. The sector practises “impact sourcing” — deliberately hiring and upskilling people from disadvantaged backgrounds. If you can communicate well in English and learn fast, training programmes will do the rest.
Browse the latest Eastern Cape jobs, Admin & Office roles and Sales jobs on JobsJunction.
Source: Moneyweb — Denise van Huyssteen, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.
Why call centres cluster where they do
Business process outsourcing is unusually sensitive to location economics, which is why the same few cities keep winning. Four factors do most of the work:
- Cost of labour and premises. Contact centres are people-heavy and floor-area-heavy, so a city with cheaper commercial space and a large workforce has a structural advantage.
- Time zone. South Africa sits in a band that overlaps the European working day, which makes it viable for UK and European accounts without permanent night shifts.
- Accent neutrality and English proficiency. The reason South African agents are in demand for UK and Australian campaigns specifically.
- Incentives. Provincial and municipal support for job creation lowers the effective cost of each seat, which is why these announcements come with job numbers attached.
What the work actually requires
The defining feature of entry-level BPO work in South Africa is that it is one of the few sectors where a matric certificate is genuinely sufficient. That makes it one of the largest formal employers of young people without tertiary qualifications, and the reason these announcements matter more than their headline number suggests.
The realistic conditions are worth going in with eyes open: shift work including evenings and weekends, strict attendance and adherence metrics, and targets that are measured continuously rather than periodically. The pay is stable and it is formal employment, but it is performance-managed work.
How to pass the assessment
Most contact centres screen before they interview, and the assessments are remarkably consistent: a typing speed and accuracy test, a reading comprehension exercise, a voice or accent assessment, and sometimes a short situational judgement section. These are all practicable in advance — particularly typing, which is the one that most often eliminates candidates who would otherwise have been hired.
Where it leads
The progression is real and it is fast by South African standards: agent, then senior agent or subject expert, then team leader, then quality assurance, workforce management or training. Large centres promote internally because supervisors who have actually taken the calls are more credible to the floor.
Related: admin and office jobs · getting hired with no matric and no experience · jobs in the Eastern Cape