From bodas to plumbers, not only have digital marketplaces for the workforce inserted hitherto independent workers into formal accountable, traceable, and reliable systems, but they have shown the ability to leverage their brands to build communities of peer workers and recognisable, shared values and cultures, brandishing remarkable campaigns on topics such as road safety, quality assurance and trustworthiness. The creation of social capital remains however poorly measured because of the high cost of capturing positive impact at scale.
On the other hand, in the attempt to meet and improve quality standards, digital platforms have been devising incentives for workers by adding to their onboarding packages a number of elements such as training, uniforms, and equipment. As Lynk CEO Adam Grunewald explains, ‘blue-collar workers in the informal sector are faced with consistent shocks ranging from unreliable value chains to changing market conditions and extortion from public officials. Dedicated upskilling activities are critical to build resilience and confidence for blue collar workers. While the historic jua-kali “hustler” persona has received praise in previous decades, recent events have made clear that up-skilling and formalisation are critical to support vocational workers in the long run and to help individuals grow in a career over time’.
In sum, digital platforms have shown an ability to create an avenue to decent employment by way of:
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Providing routes to more and higher-paying customers, often middle-income households with a higher degree of digital literacy, education, and disposable income and who leverage platforms to access domestic and blue-collar services;
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Using social capital creation as an incentive for workers to strive for quality and reliability; this includes training and culture sharing;
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Invested in human capital by including training, upskilling, and equipment provision;
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Succeeding at creating digital identity proxy data by producing records for performances, skills, and financial history for otherwise unaccountable workers;
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Measuring jobs by producing primary data on duration, obstacles, costs, and frequency, hence allowing to calculate productivity.
However, while establishing correlations between digital platforms for the workforce, mobile penetration, and informal employment, a couple of elements should be factored in:
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The size and demographics of the informal population;
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The morphology and traits of employment across these markets;
In this regard, since gathering momentum, apps have indeed been offering an avenue to formality, more highly-remunerated jobs. Traction, however, does not equal representing a panacea for endemic issues such as socio-economic precariousness, large-scale income boost, and workers’ human and labour rights. Academics and researchers such Oxford Professor Mark Graham and Digital Frontier Institute’s Chairman David Porteous have been questioning the often undisputed idea of pathways to formality as a linear journey needing acceleration. Graham investigates the counterintuitive scenario whereby gig economy platforms could run to perpetuate, instead of diminishing, the digital divide and workers’ conditions for those at the bottom of the pyramid if not promptly regulated. Porteous reflects upon the structure of income sources across Africa and points out that gigs — that is, side jobs used to increase marginal income — in these contexts are the normality and that the attention should be shifted towards maximising the productivity of widely low-yields work.