Africa rising in IT ability
Why the continent could very well emerge as the new champion of flexible working
AFRICA’S economy will grow faster than any other continent’s over the next five years and flexible working is a huge part of that future.
The African workforce is mushrooming, and by 2035 its numbers will have increased by more than the rest of the world’s regions combined.
According to World Bank analysts, this expanded working-age population could to lead to a growth in gross domestic product of up to 15% – equivalent to doubling the current rate of growth in the region. The World Economic Forum is bullish on the economic possibilities.
“This could dramatically raise labour productivity and per capita incomes, diversify the economy, and become an engine for stable economic growth, high-skilled talent and job creation for decades to come,” say Richard Samans and Saadia Zahidi, authors of the report The Future of Jobs and Skills in Africa.
But it’s not that simple. Only recently, the International Labour Organisation warned that both sub-Saharan Africa and northern Africa are facing challenges in terms of job creation, quality and sustainability.
Despite the creation of 37 million new and stable wage-paying jobs over the past decade, only 28% of Africa’s labour force hold such positions, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report. Instead, around 63% engage in self-employment or “vulnerable employment”, such as subsistence farming or urban street hawking.
Add to this the logistical difficulties for the stable wage-paying workers in getting to Africa’s urban centres.
Millions in the continent’s congested cities endure long, difficult commutes. Kenya, Algeria and the Central African Republic hold three of the top four slots for longest commute times in the world, while recent data shows poor transport could cost South Africa’s economy $104billion (R1.4trillion) a year.
The result is stagnation and emigration. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest emigration rate globally (1.5% against a global average of around 1%, according to the UN), due to a lack of decent work opportunities.
Yet change is coming. According to WEF, Africa stands to benefit in a big way from the Fourth Industrial Revolution. While the First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production, the second used electric power to create mass production, and the third used electronics and IT to automate production. The fourth fuses technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, biotechnology and quantum computing.
Africa has already seen significant technological investment in its major cities, including increased access to mobile broadband, fibre-optic cable connections to households, and power-supply expansion. This, combined with the rapid spread of low-cost smartphones and tablets, has enabled millions of Africans to connect for the first time.
And as the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds, Africa is poised to develop new patterns of working. In the same way that mobile phones have allowed some regions to bypass landline development and personal computers altogether, Africa may be uniquely positioned to jump straight past the adopted working model in other countries to a more liberated future of remote and flexible working.
In many ways, flexible working is the perfect fit for a continent with a geographically diverse, work-ready population and a strong mobile communications network, which lacks the infrastructure to support urban working patterns.
Why insist on big hub offices and long commutes when there’s a way to harness talent across the continent?
Instead, the solution could be a distributed, virtual workforce, with companies that integrate virtual freelance workers.
It is already starting to happen. A report on trending professions in Africa in the last five years shows that the number of entrepreneurs has grown by 20%.
And online platform work is on the rise, allowing many of these entrepreneurs to launch innovative start-ups that solve real-world problems and create jobs.
One example is Gawana, a Rwanda-based ride-sharing company co-founded by African entrepreneur Agnes Nyambura.
The new company solves a problem – long-distance transport that gets people from A to B affordably – and provides job opportunities for East Africans. Travellers making their usual journeys are able to advertise any spare seats in their car using the Gawana app and earn money for the trip by “working remotely” from their car – in other words, simply driving to their destination.
Another example is Lynk, a Kenya-based start-up app that connects users to their desired service providers – be it an accountant, a graphic designer or a personal assistant.
With one in six people unemployed in Kenya, previously these skilled individuals might have struggled to find formal employment. Now they’re able to open the app, accept a job, and often work remotely to complete their assigned tasks.
This system is also better for the worker, who’s able to track his or her hours and obtain references that help to secure further work.
Big global businesses are already starting to recognise the untapped potential of Africa for their tech needs, in the same way that companies did with India 25 years ago.
In the new world of work, remote employees don’t even have to be on the same continent – let alone the same office as their employers.
For example, Moringa, a Nairobi-based coding school that develops African tech talent, trains more than 250 new students a year. Its graduates go on to work remotely for the likes of global bank Barclays, which has offices in countries including Kenya, Ghana, Botswana, South Africa and Zambia; and Safaricom, an East African telecoms company.
As African cities such as Nairobi, Lagos and Kigali become major tech hubs with a wealth of well-trained tech experts at hand, global job opportunities abound.
And because of technology, individuals can work from their home countries rather than move to the countries where big multinationals reside, thus contributing to local economic growth.
Flexible workspaces are becoming an essential part of a modern country’s business infrastructure.
“For us, a high degree of interest has come from local and international businesses willing to establish a footprint in Angola, as well as from companies that need to rationalise and downsize unused resources, namely office space,” says Rui Duque, Regus country manager for Angola.
According to the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report, the most competitive countries in the world are those that nurture innovation and talent in ways that align with the changing nature of work
If the trends of the past decade continue, Africa will have created 54 million new, stable wage-paying jobs by 2022. It seems clear that remote and flexible working will be a huge part of this growth.