Working force in Africa will soon be bigger than China’s and India’s ones: according to McKinsey’s analysis, by 2034, the working – age population is expected to be 1.1 billion, larger than that of either China or India.
The challenge for Africa will be to ensure that its economies continue to create sufficient jobs for the many millions of young people entering the workforce and to help develop their skills. According to McKinsey’s analysis, the increase in the number of working-age people is linked to a GDP’s growing trend. And this is fine.
But unfortunately, in 2017 the same McKinsey consultancy contradicted Itself: in another report, it explains to companies that the future of work will concentrate on automation, to produce more.
In Africa, the great cheap manpower’s availability will have to come to terms with the spreading robotics: in 2034 a young working-age person will come upon an electronic device doing his/her work in a better way. S/he won’t claim any right to his/her employer and won’t ask for a better salary.
Moreover, this technological innovation will be depreciable and financed by governments, which are now investing in 4.0 industries in order to increase their productivity.
When these two worlds meet each other, it won’t’ be easy: on the one hand, a crowd of working-age people, waiting for a job, on the other hand, the spreading of automation, reducing job offers in favour of optimization.
Obviously in Africa this phenomenon will be less impressive than elsewhere, but the continent will certainly undergo a decrease of foreign interest: big investors won’t be interested in African cheap manpower anymore and they will prefer to look at the future, using robots.
A choice which will affect an already troubled work situation: in Africa, lots of national economies are growing by 6 – 8% each year, but they don’t create enough job opportunities for all boys and girls.
Generally, young unemployed people are more than 60% and often live below poverty line, with 2 dollars a day.
We can’t deny that the demographic wave is moving onwards and that African countries are not equipping themselves with adequate government strategies.
