‘Jobbing’ their way through unemployment apocalypse
The gig economy’s ‘independent contractors’ are left high and dry during the lockdown, but local start-ups show how it can be done
Fair conditions (illness) estimates that gig work “touches at least 1% of the SA workforce, a number growing by well above 10% a year”.
Given the average household size in SA, gig work may “directly touch the lives of up to half a million people; making it an important economic and social issue for the country,” says Fairwork in its Covid-19 and SA’S Gig Workers report released this month.
Micro-jobbing and micro-learning platform M4jam uses informal spaza shops to distribute food parcels. M4jam’s users, who are referred to as “jobbers”, complete small, market-research jobs or in-company training modules in exchange for rewards such as cash, vouchers and points.
Because business has closed during the lockdown, a number of jobbers had no money to feed their family, says CEO Georgie Midgley. As a solution, people using the platform complete small tasks and receive a voucher to get food items from spaza shops in lieu of payment. In turn, spaza shop owners are paid for the goods they pass on.
Midgley says M4jam has about 300,000 jobbers on its platform, with the company having raised over R550,000 so far for the food parcels.
The value of a hamper collected from the average spaza shop is about R300, and includes toilet paper, soap, maize meal, cooking oil and canned foods.
For a long time, companies such as Uber have argued that they are merely facilitators of job opportunities for “independent contractors”, rather than employers of workers. This attitude has extended into the economic crisis brought on by the lockdown.
Fairwork says the nonstandard employment status of gig-economy workers has proved to be a particular challenge at this time.
Fairwork’s survey suggests that most gig workers have lost their jobs entirely, while those able to work during lockdown have, on average, lost four-fifths of their income. As a result, many reported that just getting food to eat was their top priority.
With a core team of 44 spread between Joburg and Cape Town, Midgley tells the FM that the lockdown has caused M4jam to lose location-based work. Its connection with spaza shops was a result of a project to map these businesses across SA, and this had to be halted when the lockdown started.
Where possible, the platform offers