Belize City Council Bolstering Efforts to Reduce Unemployment

The Belize City Council is bolstering its efforts to reduce unemployment within the city. This morning, the City Council and Peak Outsourcing International Belize Limited signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a partnership aimed at enhancing job placement and career development opportunities for Belize City residents. Through this partnership, participants will have the opportunity to partake in workshops and training that will assist them in entering the workforce. News Five’s Britney Gordon attended the ceremony today, to learn more about this endeavor and how it will assist Belizeans currently living in poverty.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

Underemployment, food insecurity and lack of access to health and education are some of the primary indicators used to measure poverty in through The Multidimensional Poverty Index. These are challenges over one fourth of Belize’s population is currently facing. According to the Statistical Institute of Belize, SIB, the country has seen around a ten point one decline in poverty between 2021 and 2023, however, there is still much that can be done to reduce the numbers. Earlier this year, Christian Orellana, a statistician at SIB gave us more insight into those figures.

 

Christian Orellana, Statistician II, S.I.B.

“For the period September 2023 the incidence of multidimensional poverty is twenty-six point four percent. That means that twenty-six point four percent of the population is multidimensional poor. The intensity of multidimensional poverty is thirty-eight point four percent. That means that on average, a poor household had a deprivation score of thirty-eight point four percent. And our national MPI is zero point one zero one. We can also look at poverty statistics in two ways, for the total population of the country and for the households of the country, a total of one hundred three thousand nine hundred forty-four persons were multidimensional poor among twenty-four thousand ninety-six households.”

 

 

To combat this issue, the Belize City Council has partnered with Peak Outsourcing International Limited, a business solutions firm, to provide training and technical programs for residents of Belize City who are in pursuit of a career. Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City, explains why he thought it important to sign on to the project.

 

 

 

 

 

Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City

“We have been the sort of entity which really want to drive and contribute to reducing unemployment in our city. We have done it, as you see, through Being Your Own Boss initiative contributing to having people run their own little business but at the same time there are some people who want to enter and seek a career and what better place than Peak Outsourcing they have been very proactive. They have demonstrated to us that they are here for the long haul from the mere fact that you are able to establish a corporate center in the city that says a lot of how you take this business and how you see yourself being a part of the Belize City whole fabric of Belize City employment. And so we, we wanted to ensure that we contribute to youths coming out of high school coming out of universities every year. There are so many of them coming out of universities and this is a career opportunity and we wanted to be a part of it.”

 

The Belize City Council will assist Peak Outsourcing with finding participants to be trained in various skills and strengthen their resumes through community-based activities. Orson Picart, Senior Talent Acquisition specialist explained how CitCo and Peak will see this collaboration through.

 

 

 

 

 

Orson Picart, Senior Talent Acquisition specialist

“Mostly it’s to provide a funnel. Peak outsourcing, and it’s not only about recruitment to it also has to do with the other community based initiatives that we’re actually partnering on to make sure that once again, we could build the competencies of qualified individuals to make sure that they have placement. Where there are different social projects, we definitely want to be a part of those sort of different initiatives that the Belize City Council has in place, we are going to be partnering with them to see how best we can lend resources and collaborate to make the events a little bit more bigger.”

 

 

 

Some may criticize the rapid growth of the BPO industry in Belize, but it has become one of the primary sources of employment for many young professionals. Wagner says that this is a positive step towards reducing unemployment.

 

 

 

 

 

Bernard Wagner

“The fact of the matter is that we once used to complain about employment opportunities. We have seen where employment, unemployment has reduced. So the last figure I saw was a close to three percent. This is a part of that whole effort to have our graduates, young people have job opportunities. It will never always be about government providing the job opportunities, but the private sector, being your own boss, private sector, these are all part of the whole system that contribute.”

 

 

 

Wagner stresses the importance of acknowledging call centers as legitimate careers as they continue to fill the gaps of employment in Belizean society. Angel Burke, an employee at Peak Outsourcing, told us that she began as a call agent and has since moved up in her field.

 

 

 

 

 

Angel Burke, Talent Acquisition Specialist

“It has impacted my life in a very big way because here at Peak Outsourcing, we have a different culture. We base on positivity. We base on respect, professionalism, knowledge, a lot of different stuff.”

 

Britney Gordon

“And your daily life, how has that bled over into that being able to know that you have a secure job that you’re content and happy and satisfied with?”

 

Angel Burke

“Definitely stability because I see myself in this position doing good for myself and for my son. One day they can look up and see that’s my mama. She do interviews for peak outsourcing.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.