Improved access to smartphones has put the power of change into the hands of many, and in a labour surplus economy like South Africa’s, where there is an overflow of low skilled and unemployed workers, mobile technology is a key tool for improving communication between potential employers and employees.
“With access to mobile connectivity steadily increasing on the continent, it can be used to empower the unemployed,” says Angus Robinson, Head of Mobility and Innovation at NATIVE VML.
Painting a well-known scenario in South Africa, Robinson talks about the difficulties of matching job seekers to low-skilled jobs such as gardening, painting and other building contracting. “Industries with low-skill, short-term jobs could use mobile to fill the supply and demand gap. Think about the men on the side of the road advertising their painting skills,” he says. “You might have a job for him – but how do you know he really possesses those skills? Can you trust him? A mobile database that verifies an individual and enables past employers to endorse those skills would help alleviate these problems. Ultimately, it could become an app that matches potential employees with available job opportunities making it easier for low-skilled and semi-skilled people to identify job opportunities for themselves.”
Apps that remove the hurdles in any process are bound to be successful. “Uber is a good example of this. They identified the gap – the difficulties of hiring a taxi – and they demonstrated how if you remove friction from the experience, more people will pay attention,” explains Robinson. “They completely disrupted the industry. Job creation and opportunity matching needs an ‘Uber’.”
Robinson also refers to Babajob.com, a location-based mobile Indian service that connects employers with low- or semi-skilled workers like domestic workers, drivers, and cleaners. Bangalore is so gridlocked that the cost of and time taken travelling to a ‘piece job’ doesn’t make taking the job worthwhile. Waking up at 3am and spending 60% of your income getting to work and back just does not make sense. “Babajob removes the time and space challenges of this type of short term employment. And it works – the service now has over 2.5 million job listings from over 80 000 employers,” he says.
As always it’s important to be cognisant of the high cost of mobile in South Africa, cautions Robinson. “Make sure the potential employee carries minimal expenses, especially when many of these job seekers have little to no money. Developing an app on a social network like MXit could be a user friendly way of connecting people to jobs via mobile – for the end user as well as the developer,” says Robinson. “Mobile payments can also be used effectively. For example, a payment app could allow for the employer to send an electronic voucher for a taxi to a worker to help them get to work. Another option would be to pay for services rendered to their mobile number using one of the cardless transaction services offered by local banks. This allows people without bank accounts to be paid.”
But, it does not always have to be about creating ‘jobs’. Technology has enabled a new trend called Micro Jobbing which allows tasks to be performed in return for remuneration. Originally launched by Amazon.com in 2005, it has created a marketplace for tasks, or in their lexicon, Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs). “Micro Jobbing received a huge boost in South Africa with the August launch of Money for Jam (M4JAM.com), the brainchild of ex-Deloitte digital executive, Andre Hugo,” he says. “Tasks such as surveys and brand activations are available through M4JAM’s WeChat application and payments are made via PicknPay or Boxer stores.”
Robinson believes that creating employment opportunities should also be linked with educational systems aimed at upskilling people. An app that includes an easy-to-use personal evaluation for the job seeker, for example, will help identify areas of growth and corresponding content that may enable them to deal with any areas requiring improvement. There are services such as bookly, a fully equipped e-reader app, that allow feature phones to have kindle-like content. “If the candidate does poorly in a section, you can direct them to content that will help them improve their skills.”
“The entire process, from vacancy advertising, to potential employee evaluation, to making an offer of employment, can be automated with mobile technology,” he explains. “Mobile can address the supply and demand issue with Matching, the next frontier in mobile. Adoption of this approach will be defined by how streamlined the user experience is.”
“Mobile is revolutionary in developing countries because it has the capacity to empower people to create real change in their lives. Matching apps that focus on job placements and education literally put the power of change in the user’s hands.”
