The gig economy is mostly seen as a critical element of a country's economy and employment. However, formal job is far from reality for the vast majority of people around the world, especially in low-income countries, where there is a high level of informality.

In Zimbabwe, for example, it is estimated that 90 per cent of people work in the informal sector as subsistence farmers, vendors, and small-scale traders. Meanwhile, 71 per cent of registered businesses consist of individual entrepreneurs, many with multiple ‘hustles’ – some entrepreneurial, some not. It is estimated that 63 per cent of the total labour force in Africa engages in some form of self-employment.

The pandemic has enabled Africa and other emerging markets to explore online gig work to increase productivity and the quality of work for its large workforce.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s youngest region, with over 60 per cent of its population being below 25 years, and it comprises 13 per cent of the world’s workforce, after Asia.

However, African countries currently experience very minimal participation in digital work compared to other emerging countries.

Distribution of Digital Workers, by Country — % digital workers

There is more and more evidence that gig economy has the potential to complement efforts to increase formal employment and provide another avenue to meaningful engagement with the formal economy.

This is also reflected in the 2021 Fairwork Foundation report on gig work in South Africa, that confirms digital labour platforms hold the potential to reduce the extremely high unemployment and inequality. The South African economy is characterised by a relatively highly developed internet infrastructure, regulatory conditions supporting innovation, high levels of unemployment, a substantial informal sector, and extreme inequality. All of these factors make the country ripe for the emergence of the gig economy, which is commonly understood as a labour market comprising freelance and short-term jobs – or ‘gigs’ – wherein organisations contract with independent workers on a non-permanent basis, rather than recruiting full-time employees.

In the context of a general unemployment crisis, South Africa’s digital labour platforms have come to play an increasingly important role. Digital platforms are frequently heralded as the solution to this problem, as they allow those who typically face barriers to employment to find work more easily. Nonetheless, joining the gig economy in South Africa can often present hidden economic barriers that continue to challenge inclusion for already marginalized communities. These could include the cost of hiring a car in order to enter the e-hailing sector or paying for public transport costs to get to jobs far from one’s place. Despite these costs, the gig economy has played an important part in providing work during a year of considerable financial instability. In particular, the food delivery sector has seen considerable growth during the lockdown periods, as have grocery delivery services. As many of the interviewees were previously unemployed or had lost jobs during the course of the pandemic, these opportunities have definitely been important for the South African economy.

The report also points out some of the important steps that some platforms have been taking to safeguard their workers during the pandemic.

In addition to financial support, some platforms provided training opportunities to their workers. These took the form of in-app training modules on personal development, business, and money management.

While some of the reports findings still raise some questions, as well as the benchmarking methodology they have used, the report does confirm the positive developments regarding decent and fair work standards in the gig economy, compensating challenges experienced by gig workers.