New investments in digital skills to meet shared services and IT boom

The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) has organised its annual Employment Fair, through which 40 global and local ICT companies have brought job opportunities closer to young Egyptian talents and fresh graduates.

‏The virtual gathering is one of ITIDA’s endeavours to meet the accelerated demand for labour in the growing offshoring market through linking local talent with outsourcing and technology employers in addition to its role in enhancing business skills and equipping Egyptian youth especially university grads with the essential business and digital skills to join the ICT sector.

‏During his opening remarks, Amr Mahfouz; ITIDA’s CEO, stated that the Egyptian ICT sector is one of the most opportunity-packed, labor-intensive sectors. Mahfouz highlighted the role played by the Egyptian government and the unprecedented huge investments in infrastructure development and enhancing the digital skills of young people which led to the rapid response, and resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“ITIDA has trained 162K trainees through its flagship initiative Egypt FWD, Next Technology Leaders initiative, in addition to the foreign language training programmes and the agency has helped in adding 22K new jobs to the sector during 2021”, Mahfouz noted.

‏Additionally, ITIDA CEO affirmed that Egypt is poised to be the next big business destination and a global offshoring hub. He unveiled a new ambitious strategy developed in co-operation with the global consultancy firm Ernst & Young, aiming to triple the size of BPO and ITO exports over the next five years.

‏Mahfouz stressed that ITIDA is committed to boosting the Egyptian market capabilities to attract more shared and offshore services centers, a business that is booming as a result of the spread of digital solutions and increased adoption of multinationals to policies that aim to improve the quality of support services while reducing the cost of operations and Human Resources (HR).

‏He added that ITIDA will continue to provide a wide range of training programmes and initiatives under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), targeting to train 200K trainees, with a budget of EGP1.1 billion during FY2022.

‏Mahfouz encouraged offshoring companies to take advantage of the Egyptian large talent pool, not only in Cairo, but in various governorates, and to leverage the newly introduced models of work, that are expected to be the new norm, even during the post-pandemic period. He also motivated young talents to strive to seize the training grants and government-led initiatives and constantly develop their digital skills, to keep pace with global trends and the changing market demand, as well as the fierce global competition.

‏Over 6200 young men and women registered to explore and apply to nearly 5700 available jobs and internship opportunities offered by key global and local employers like AWS, Oracle, Webhelp, Dell, Etisalat, Teleperformance, VOIS, DXC Technology, Raya, Majorel, Concentrix.

‏ITIDA organises the employment fair to meet the needs and rising demand of the business services and outsourcing industry in Egypt as it’s home to the world’s leading companies delivering ITO and BPO services globally and the country is one of the key global hubs for the IT and IT enabled services.