How global capability centres can power South Africa’s workforce
7 min read
Historically, global capability centres (GCCs) were viewed as back-office support hubs, cost-effective ways to manage overflow work. However, following the benchmark set by India, GCCs have evolved into global value creators.
They are no longer about hiring people to fill seats; they are building scalable, future-ready capability.
In South Africa, GCCs offer one of the most effective mechanisms to convert skills into real capability. In a GCC environment, learning is not theoretical – it is embedded in live, globally integrated business operations. South African graduates are not only trained in areas such as cloud computing or artificial intelligence, but are applying those skills within complex, high-stakes international systems from day one. This significantly compresses the transition from education to employability.
For years, we have approached the country’s skills gap as a problem rooted in curricula across the education system, assuming that with a few adjustments, or by simply increasing the number of certificates issued, the gap would close. But the reality is more nuanced: The mismatch is not just about a lack of qualifications but a critical lack of workplace-ready experience.
The Q1 2026 Quarterly Labour Force Survey highlights this national fault line: The official unemployment rate has risen to 32.7%, up from 31.4% in Q4 2025, while youth (aged 15–34) remain the most vulnerable – nearly one in two are unemployed, with 4.7 million young people out of work.
Even a university degree is no guarantee of employment today, as graduate unemployment increased to 10.3% overall, up from around 8%–9% in late 2024 and climbed to nearly 24% among young graduates.
This can be interpreted in several ways, but a consistent theme is that many graduates enter the workforce with strong theoretical knowledge from their academic training, while employers increasingly expect some level of practical, work-based experience in today’s job market.
We have seen this demonstrated in practice through our TransUnion Africa GCC programmes, which have created meaningful entry points for young people into the workforce.
By gaining hands-on experience within a dynamic, high-impact global business environment, participants have built essential skills. These include:
- Self-management in a virtual workplace as first-time employees.
- Strong problem-solving abilities developed through resolving complex consumer queries daily.
- Adaptability from engaging with diverse global cultures and navigating multiple systems, applications and platforms.
- Resilience in managing the pressures of virtual work and irregular hours.
- Enhanced emotional intelligence, particularly when handling high-pressure interactions with challenging consumers.
This builds not just technical skills but also the confidence and adaptability required to operate effectively in real-world settings, with measurable growth in these areas over time.
It points to a deeper structural disconnect between education and employability, one that cannot be solved by curriculum reform alone. What is missing is clearly not just knowledge but meaningful, applied experience: the kind that builds commercial awareness, technical fluency and the ability to operate in real-world environments.
This is where structured pathways such as graduate programmes, internships and learnerships become critical – not as add-ons, but as essential bridges between learning and earning, equipping young people with the context, confidence and capabilities that the workplace demands.
According to a 2025 Stats SA report titled “South Africa’s Youth in the Labour Market: A Decade in Review”, the difficulty faced by young people in finding entry-level jobs is driven by a cycle of exclusion centred on a lack of experience and a mismatch in skills.
To truly change this situation and to transform our economy in the process, we must stop viewing employment and experience as a ‘chicken-and-egg’ dilemma (where one cannot be obtained without the other) and start leveraging the GCC model to provide the immediate, high-level exposure that turns first-time job seekers into seasoned global professionals.
While employers naturally hire specific technical skills, the true value of a GCC lies in how it acts as a high-velocity incubator, taking those foundational skills and transforming them into applied capabilities by immersing talent in live, complex business environments. By providing direct access to global systems and digital tools, GCCs offer South African professionals exposure to world-class technology and international workflows that are often absent in local-only corporate structures.
For example, the GCC environment can facilitate applied innovation, shifting the development focus from basic digital literacy toward high-demand mastery in areas like AI, analytics and cybersecurity. This exposure thus triggers an accelerated progression, creating clear pathways where individuals can enter entry-level roles and rapidly transition into technical specialist work.
Additionally, if we want to truly address South Africa’s skills gap, we must stop measuring success solely by headcount. While the ambition is to support 500 000 new jobs by 2030, the deeper value lies in the transfer of skills that take the country’s labour population into the future.
It must be noted that closing the experience gap is a challenge that exceeds the reach of GCCs alone; it demands a unified, demand-led strategy rooted in collaboration. To succeed, education institutions must move beyond traditional curricula to actively bridge the chasm between academic theory and the rigorous expectations of a technology-driven workplace.
Simultaneously, the government and industry bodies such as Business Process Enabling South Africa play a vital role in fostering the public-private partnerships necessary to sharpen future-work-readiness and build talent pipelines that are resilient to the shifts brought on by AI and automation.
The objective is a fundamental shift in how we develop our labour force. People need to be moved from learning into work, and from work into true mastery. By using the specialised, high-intensity environment of GCCs, we can do more than providing employment; we can offer South Africans a seat at the table where they can operate effectively in a high impact global economy.
The future of South Africa’s economy depends on our ability to transform raw potential into applied capability. We have a unique opportunity to stop viewing our labour force through the lens of scarcity and start seeing it as a source of global value. By shifting our focus toward closing the experience gap, we ensure our youth are no longer just participants in the economy but architects of its future.
The tools are within our reach, and the global stage is waiting; now, we must have the collective courage to ensure South Africans are not just looking for work but are ready to lead it.
Shobana Maikoo
Head
