The landscape of employment has undergone significant changes in the last 25 years. At the turn of the millennium, the workforce could generally be divided into two categories: those with stable careers and those in precarious industry positions. The latter group comprised individuals with limited prospects for career advancement. Certain industries and roles were associated with higher vulnerability to replacement, often labelled as ‘unskilled labor’, even before the threat of mechanization loomed. However, with the emergence of poly-employment, the balance appears to have shifted, albeit with some uncertainty.
Poly-employment can most readily be translated to “working more than one job at the same time”. This phenomenon, whilst not entirely new for many people of vulnerable socio-economic classes, is on the rise as a different generation of potential personnel makes its way into the labour force. Most notably used in a report by San Francisco-based workforce management and scheduling platform, Deputy, the term has brought to light the realities of most workers. In “The Big Shift: U.S. Retail Report 2023”, Deputy and their researchers not only revealed the proliferation of the practice, but also drew attention to what necessitates its existence and the industries in which it mostly happens. The global research engaged 120,000 shift workers over the course of 81 million shifts, and found that hospitality, healthcare, and retail sectors accounted for 78 percent, 12 percent, and 6 percent of poly-employees respectively. Women were also found to be most likely to engage in poly-employment – affirming findings by the International Labour Organisation that “the current global labour force participation rate for women is just under 47 percent [while] for men, it’s 72 percent.”
The cost-of-living crisis has been a topic of political and social discussions over the past two years. The unrest in Europe and the Middle East and the impact each military exercise has had on the world at large have fast become quite apparent. Many learnt about Ukraine’s role as a major wheat exporter when Russia prevented their access to maritime trade. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinated site, relief web: “Ukraine exported around 8.7 million tons of grain and legumes since the start of the 2023/24 marketing year on July 1, 2023”. Such a bounce-back is worthy of celebration; however, the core politics of resources such as oil have only gotten more heated in the time these conflicts have unfolded.
As such, a phenomenon like poly-employment isn’t a shock to global systems, but can’t go unnoticed. The principal requirement of poly-employment is that a person must have the flexibility – whether personally designed or consequential – to be available to work more than one job at a time. While human resource professionals have raised flags at the potential for self-enslavement – over-working to make ends meet, there continues to be a gap in considering the implications of poly-employment on productivity. There are economies in which holding more than one job securely is impossible. Outside of labourers who have a diverse set of skills and are willing to work for themselves as freelance service providers, Botswana doesn’t necessarily have the landscape for the Hollywood narrative of being a waitress by day, cleaner by night, working part-time as a dog-walker and yoga instructor. As such, matters of class come into play when considering the probability of poly-employment in such a space.
Poly-employment is also not a matter of having a “side hustle” while being a full-time employee elsewhere. A 2021 report published by Business Insider India ranked Botswana in 8th position among countries with the most entrepreneurship, with a rate of 11.1 percent of the population being classified thus. The report, however, further expands on the kind of business undertaken by people, with stalls and street vending being the majority. The establishment of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship in 2022 gave promise to those interested in the field of independent employment, especially with the announced launching budget of P 1.1 billion. While the entrepreneurial market may grow in Botswana, the rate of absorption of labourers into formal employment continues to lag.
In her address to the National Assembly this week, Honourable Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Annah Mokgethi, cited that the Quarter 3 Quarterly Multi-Topic survey of 2023 reported a total of 40, 036 graduates in Botswana as unemployed. The traditional trajectory of feeding the education system with scholars such that it will feed the labour market with qualified employees has reached an impasse. The rise in poly-employment shows that not only are people looking to diversify their risk portfolios – hoping that should one job be lost, there will still be somewhere else to receive income while looking to fill the gap – but alerts us to the potentially unstoppable decline of career pursuits in favour of self-determined livelihoods.
According to macroeconomic data analyst firm, CEIC, Botswana’s labour productivity “improved by 7.30 percent [year-on-year] in December 2022, compared with a growth of 2.42 percent in the previous quarter”. Encouraging as such a leap may be, it still begs the question of how the masses of unemployed people – many of whom are willing to be underemployed out of desperation – can engage in the economic progress of the country if poly-employment is not an option. As the country continues to aspire to ascend from upper middle-income to high-income status by 2036, the dependence on skilled, qualified, motivated and productive labourers to achieve this will require directed efforts to solve the consequences that may drive them into a poly-employment economy.
