Around the world, the new technologies behind digital commerce have reshaped the physical economy of goods and services, as well as employment. Digital commerce – or ecommerce, as it’s still commonly known – has not only disrupted entire sectors like retail and travel, it has also undercut policy approaches to areas such as cross-border taxation. In this way, digital commerce is truly a double-edged sword. The question for policymakers in Africa is whether they can help wield it as a positive force for employment, as the phenomenon advances across their region. BFA recently conducted a scenario-building exercise to identify the options facing African policymakers and, as we argue in the full report, we believe that there are choices that will make the outcome more positive for employment...

African policymakers face choices about how fast they should encourage digital commerce to grow. Because, while they cannot stop it, they can take steps that may accelerate or slow its development... Accelerating digital commerce alone does not assure positive outcomes for employment. Some researchers have already sounded an alarm around the risk of a “race to the bottom” through global gigwork, a growing sector of digital commerce. Employees previously in formal jobs have become “dependent contractors” and not always by choice. This shift away from formal employment in developed countries challenges national labour law and has already resulted in a rash of lawsuits in the US, UK, and elsewhere, to define the shifting boundaries of jobs.