Covid-19 has greatly contributed to the revolution of the workplace, especially in Africa.
Although freelancing has taken the market by storm, talent matching in Africa remains a rampant problem as seniority is scarce in several verticals.
As for African SMEs and not well-funded start-ups who want to prove out their models, senior talent costs more than they can afford.
Freelancing has changed the nature of how Africa’s workforce accesses jobs, shifting the source of job opportunities from conventional informal labour to digital and virtual workspace.
Covid-19 has greatly contributed to the revolution of the workplace, especially in Africa. Professionals continue to either drop the 9-to-5 jobs or add freelancing to their resume just to get that extra income.
This has played out in mature markets like Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa, as well as in less mature markets like Ethiopia and Senegal, and globally.
The global freelance market size was estimated at $2.4 billion (in 2018) and Africa accounts for only two percent of this value although there has been an upsurge in the freelance market on the continent.
Although freelancing has taken the market by storm, talent matching in Africa remains a rampant problem as seniority is scarce in several verticals.
Senior talents are quickly grabbed by well-funded startups and tech multinationals settling more and more in Africa. The reason this is not happening at a more accelerated rate is the lack of certain types of talents.
Organisations are finding it too expensive or unsustainable to constantly import ex-pats to solve problems specific to African countries.
As for African SMEs and not well-funded start-ups who want to prove out their models, senior talent costs more than they can afford. Due to the scarcity of talent, a good experienced senior full-stack developer and an experienced digital marketing manager will cost anywhere from $2000 to $5000 monthly depending on what country they are in.
The continent is faced with a big dilemma. On the one hand, we have an increase of African start-ups being funded: $6 billion+ since 2019 raised to date; and more than $2.9 billion since the start of this year, including $817 million in September 2021 alone, according to ‘Africa: The Big Deal’. VC investment in Africa is predicted to exceed $10 billion by 2025, according to the annual Partech Africa Report.
And on the other side, a serious shortage of a certain level of experienced talent across the continent is pervasive.
It takes an average of three years to turn an intermediate talent into a senior. Given that the majority of the tech talent on the continent are between Juniors and Intermediates based on our research and own onboarded talent, something drastic and exponential needs to be done to raise the number of experienced talent who can be classified at the level of senior or expert.
The solution lies in deploying a concerted ecosystem-wide effort. By creating a system that galvanises the existing elements of companies, start-ups, and SMEs, investors, incubators and accelerators, universities, African Diaspora, and talents to then produce equipped talents within a two-year span.
We need to all have a two-year projection of our hiring needs and start to groom the talent early. Now, understanding the urgency in solidifying such a system is key.
The best freelance talent marketplaces thrive on quality, not quantity.
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