The African continent is gradually transitioning towards the gig economy, as early-stage entrepreneurs and funders increasingly favor on-demand services as opposed to more traditional jobs boards.
This is according to the Future of Work: Exploring the African Digital Work Landscape Report 2018, released two weeks ago by Disrupt Africa, which records 180 startups in operation across Africa, changing the face of the continent’s work and employment landscape.
The report finds that the startup community across Africa has fully embraced the digital workplace, with evidence of a thriving “future of work” ecosystem on the continent. A sudden boom can be identified between 2015 and 2017, a period in which almost 75 per cent of the startups currently active were launched.
Though the initial growth in the space was attributable to the establishment of startups applying tech to the traditional jobs board approach, allowing employers to advertise jobs to prospective employees online, the sector is gradually maturing. Increasingly, more mature solutions aimed at freelance, one-off or project-based work are taking centre stage.
From Pulse. Story by Aderemi Ojekunle.
On-demand platforms now account for a greater percentage of the market – 35% in all – than recruitment services and marketplaces, a share that is increasing over time. These services are active across a variety of spaces, most notably logistics, transport, education and home services.
As on-demand solutions increasingly come to the fore, investors have focused their attentions on this space. Whereas in 2015, the three major sub-sectors – recruitment, marketplaces, and on-demand – secured similar total amounts of funding, the latter is increasingly asserting itself as the leader, raising over US$14.5 million in funding in the last 3.5 years.
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