Against a backdrop of glaring unemployment on the continent[1], African countries are aggressively pursuing the digital economy as an accelerator of economic growth[2]. But should they be without adequate digital labor reform in African countries?

Contemporaneously, global tech companies have seen exponential growth and technological advancements in recent years. The race to entrench market power has created the need for an expanded digital labour force for tech companies. In a concerning trend, tech companies look to vulnerable communities in Africa to complement their labour force deficit and to expand their markets.

Governments, looking to bridge the unemployment gap, appreciate the opportunity presented by the digital labour appetite. This has translated to a massive campaign for the youth to consider opportunities in digital labour and an even bigger campaign for tech companies to create more job opportunities on the African continent.

Platform Work Necessitates Digital Labor Reform in Africa

Platform work is one area that has seen exponential growth following this campaign. Regrettably, existing labour laws are not responsive enough to address the novelty of platform work. Platform workers are often in an ambiguous employment relationship with an ambiguous employer.

This has created an anarchical labour market where tech companies resort to exploitation to draw maximum value at the lowest cost from African platform workers.

Ambiguous Employers

Tech companies, to circumvent regulatory attempts by governments of the countries they operate in, maintain complex and obscure corporate structures. In the case of ride-hailing platforms, the contracting party is the ride-hailing company itself, headquartered in Africa with a local agent for marketing purposes. For algorithm training workers, platforms exist as transient online pages, there today and gone tomorrow. A vast majority of digital workers are employed through Business Process Outsourcing companies (BPOs) but are managed remotely by tech companies resident abroad, making it impossible to pinpoint who the actual employer is.

Ambiguous Employment Relationship

It is to be appreciated that most labour laws in Africa divide workers into the dual categories of employee and independent contractor. This is fashioned against our traditional understanding of employment, an approach that is not responsive to the digital labour force. Laws on unionising and labour relations are also fashioned to respond to this duality.

Read the full article about digital labor reform in Africa by Mercy Mutemi at Alliance Magazine.