Introducing The Flip Season Four: The Future of Work

Justin Norman: Here's some statistics that you're going to hear several times throughout season four of The Flip.
Africa's population is 1.4 billion people. It's not only huge, but it's the youngest and fastest growing continent. Its population will double by 2050. Its urban population will triple.

In the next 80 years, the global population will grow by 3 billion people. 2.7 billion, or 87% of the global population growth, will come from sub-Saharan Africa.

The median age on the continent is 19.7 years old. Compare that to the UK, which is 40. The US, which is 38. Germany is 46, Japan is 49. Even in China it's 38, and in India it's 28.

As a result of these demographic trends African countries will be adding more people to the workforce in the next 10 years than the rest of the world combined.

Meanwhile, since 2000, 9 million jobs have been added to the economy each year in Africa compared to 20 million-plus people joining the workforce.

We often hear about Africa's rising population growth as a good thing, particularly from a market size perspective. But when it's coupled with an already staggeringly high youth unemployment rate, it could be a catastrophe. Where are the jobs going to come from? And what is the future of work in Africa going to look like?‍

Justin Norman: My name is Justin Norman. I'm the Founder and Jost of The Flip, and I'm excited to announce the launch of Season Four of the show, commencing February 16th. All this season we're going to be exploring the future of work in Africa, and we've got an esteemed roster of guests guiding us through our journey of exploration.
Founders like Fred Swaniker of the African Leadership Group.‍

Fred Swaniker: What we found out is that service companies employ 100 to 300 times more people than the product companies. So if we're going to create work for these young people, we need to become service-oriented, not product-oriented.

‍Justin Norman: And Jeremy Johnson, the co-founder and CEO of Andela ‍

Jeremy Johnson: There are lots of little components of the hiring process that in totality make international hiring much more complicated. But if you do it well, it's a game changer. ‍

Justin Norman: we'll talk to Hilda Kabushenga Kragha, the CEO of The African Talent Company.‍

Hilda Kragha: We still have huge gaps across the bread and butter of work, and that is education, healthcare, agriculture. When I think about where the jobs are going to come from, I think fundamentally it's going to be those bread and butter roles in society. ‍

Justin Norman: And the development economist Louise Fox.‍

Louise Fox: The first thing I would say is that the challenge Africa's facing is not unprecedented. As a matter of fact, every other developing region in the world has faced it.‍

Justin Norman: We'll explore these topics and much more in season four of The Flip. So be sure to hit that subscribe button in your favorite podcast app to get all ten episodes of this season straight to your feed.

Thanks as always for listening, and we'll see you next week for the launch of Season Four of The Flip.