The coming “youthquake” in Africa is well-documented. Reports indicate Africa will account for two out of every five children born on the planet. According to The New York Times analysis of UN World Population Prospects, Africa will have the world’s largest workforce, surpassing China and India within the next decade – yet there remains a lagging focus on job creation on the continent. Historically, employment programming has focused on job skills training or seed money to start businesses. But what can you do when there aren’t enough jobs for the growing population and training more people only creates a larger pool of higher-skilled unemployed people?

At Mercy Corps, we believe that ‘jobtech’ platforms will play a critical role in the future of work in Africa. Jobtech describes the digital platforms that more effectively and efficiently match people with the kind of work that builds livelihoods, using technology to enable, facilitate, or improve access and delivery of quality work. In the US, it’s difficult to find a job or gig, or sell a product, without in some way interacting with an e-commerce platform, job board, or matching platform. These platforms have improved access to job opportunities across the country, reduced barriers to access for excluded groups like refugees. By some estimates, there are more than 26 million ecommerce micro-enterprises in the US.

In Africa, jobtech is currently far from ubiquitous; there are few successful platforms, and few young people successfully building their livelihoods through jobtech. But with rapid growth in digitization (the number of smartphone subscriptions in Africa has grown from less than 20 million in 2011 to over 400 million in 2023) and demographic shifts, this sector is primed for growth. It is expected that 30-88 million Africans will earn at least a portion of their income through jobtech by 2030.

The Jobtech Alliance, an ecosystem-building initiative steered by Mercy Corps and BFA global, seeks to ensure that unemployed and underemployed young people across the continent can find quality work through digital platforms.

The Jobtech Alliance works with high-potential job tech platforms across Africa to improve their businesses in ways that:

  1. Create more jobs for their users.
  2. Improve the quality of work for existing users.
  3. Reduce barriers to access for marginalized groups like refugees.

The Jobtech Alliance also shares the learnings of what does and doesn’t work with its community of over 1,500 entrepreneurs building Jobtech platforms in Africa and other stakeholders.

Since launching in 2021, the Alliance has created and improved 1,800 quality jobs and brought income to 11,000 people across over 20 jobtech platforms. The Alliance’s next phase, which is set to begin in 2025, aims to create income opportunities for more than 500,000 young people across Africa.

Interestingly, while only 42% of platform users overall were female, 58% of the platforms’ higher earners were female, which shows that – when given the chance – young women in Africa outperform men on these platforms. Additionally, the Jobtech Alliance has more than 40,000 unique consumers of its learning content.

Read the full article about Jobtech Alliance by Tracey Compton at Global Washington.