Shelly-Ann Roberts*, who is eight months pregnant and works at a St Andrew company, and Nikeisha Hemmings*, a senior employee at the Alorica call centre which has accounted for Jamaica’s largest cluster of COVID-19 cases thus far, spoke with The Sunday Gleaner last week.

Like many BPO workers, Roberts said she is allowed two 15-minute breaks and half an hour for lunch.

However, with the new set-up and a wandering three-year-old, she takes breaks whenever she desires, though still focused on meeting her quota of calls for the week.

More than 7,000 BPO workers have been laid off since the local coronavirus outbreak, and while Roberts said the call load has taken a dip in recent weeks, she is still grateful to be among those still pulling in a salary.

Although hundreds of Alorica staff members were ordered tested for COVID-19 following the outbreak, Hemmings told The Sunday Gleaner that she has not yet been tested.