The Significance of the Gig Economy in the Emerging World
The rise of the gig economy, coupled with the adoption of cryptocurrency, is a double-edged sword which looks set to challenge existing systems — for good or bad.
The shape of the global workforce has changed drastically in recent years, with the rise of the internet forcing us to re-examine our preconceived notions of what employment actually is.
Most Europeans alive today grew up in an environment where their parents went to work for a specific firm, at a specific place; with a desired dress-code and clear start and finish times.
But according to some researchers, over 50% of U.K and European workers will be independent contractors by 2020. Already 34% of Americans are independently working in the gig economy, and that number is also growing rapidly.
Many Westerners, particularly the older generations, still pine for the days when a person would work at the same place their entire life. It’s not just job stability they crave, but a return to the kind of trust and familiarity that used to be found in the workplace.
Into Africa
While Europeans are just starting to get to grips with the gig economy, it has already been prevalent in African nations for a while now; as a lack of long-term stable jobs forces individuals to compete for short term gigs.
In 2015, there were 3.1 million new jobs created across the continent — but in the same year 12 million young Africans joined the workforce. This disparity has forced us to consider new ways of approaching an age old problem.
Freelancing and Crypto
The rise of freelance intermediary sites has spawned a new kind of employment opportunity in recent years, as workers seek to outbid each other for work posted on the internet
This ability for working remotely has its benefits, since anyone with an internet connection from a local cafe can conceivably find work and get paid, regardless of their physical destination, or the state of the job market in their area.
The addition of cryptocurrency into this mix also brings some unique benefits. With nothing but a valid crypto-wallet public key, a worker in an unstable region of the continent, living under an oppressive regime, can make and receive money without attracting the attention of the state, or of opportunistic scammers and thieves.
In countries where the fiat currency still fluctuates wildly, cryptocurrency can step in to level the playing field, to some degree at least.
While this may all sound positive, there are inevitable downsides.
Race to the Bottom
One of the pitfalls of the gig economy is the cut-throat competition it produces.
On sites like Upwork and Freelancer, fees can range as high as 20% for freelancers; and that’s before converting from USD into your local currency. At the same time, these sites are overloaded with people looking for work — to the point where they have stopped accepting applications from people in certain countries.
Since U.S dollars are the internet’s universal currency, freelancers from developing nations can afford to set the lowest rates — knowing that their dollars are worth more compared to their own legal tender.
This may be beneficial in allowing people from disadvantaged nations to find work, but the side effect is that it triggers a race to the bottom — where everyone sets their prices as low as they can go, thus squeezing out high quality workers seeking fair reward for their skills.
Dash
The crypto payment utility, Dash, is making big moves in Africa, as it seeks to roll out cryptocurrency across the continent.
This has some obvious, and much needed benefits, like freeing African citizens up from reliance on unstable, inflating and fluctuating fiat currencies.
Dash recently launched a campaign in Zimbabwe to combat ballooning inflation — at a time when Zimbabwean’s have to wait hours in bank queues to collect their rapidly declining currency, and are charged exorbitant fees when doing so.
Crypto solutions like Dash offer a fast, low-cost alternative to unstable fiat systems, and can be accessed by anyone in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Dash have expanded into Cameroon and Nigeria in recent months, and look set to continue their rollout of crypto throughout the African continent.
CanYa
As the gig economy grows ever more quickly, CanYa is leading the way in into combining freelance work with cryptocurrency.
CanYa is a decentralised, peer-to-peer marketplace and ecosystem which acts as a global marketplace for those buying and selling freelance services. CanYa functions in much the same way as traditional sites like Upwork and Fivver; offering a platform for freelancers to connect with clients.
The difference, however, is that CanYa avoids the exorbitant user fees of those previously mentioned sites, while offering an integrated, universal currency in the form of the CAN token.
The decentralized and largely autonomous CanYa platform cuts out the middle-men, and allows freelancers to take work directly from the client.
This is especially beneficial to workers in developing nations, where many people set themselves up as intermediaries — taking on large scale jobs and then farming them out to individual freelancers for their own personal profit.
One idea suggested by industry enthusiasts is that of a cooperative platform; made by the workers, for the workers — a platform without a centralized authority, where workers can exploit their own skills; rather than being exploited by the platform (Upwork, etc.) If CanYa continues its current trajectory, they could become the very platform which provides this service.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrency can be viewed differently depending on where you stand. From the perspective of many Americans and Europeans, cryptocurrency is something to be eyed suspiciously, as it threatens to disrupt the established economies of their respective countries.
In many African nations, however, the same technology is seen as a liberator from corrupt or oppressive institutions. The same notion applies to freelancing — while Westerners may bemoan the rise of the gig economy, it could end up being one of the things that boosts the fledgling economies of many African countries.
The established systems of employment are disappearing from beneath our feet. Whether a crypto-based gig economy will be the thing that catches us, only time will tell.
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