Gig economy and freelancing work in Algeria: A descriptive survey study

Abstract

In Algeria, gig economy was fueled by two primary factors: improved local telecommunications infrastructure and internet connectivity and labor market deteriorating conditions.

This study aims to describe Algerian freelancers' experience in the gig economy, the precarities and inequalities gig workers experience with platforms.

This research is an exploratory descriptive study. It uses an online questionnaire to conduct a descriptive survey on 60 Algerian freelancer active on freelancing platforms. Respondents were reached via LinkedIn. The collected data were analyzed using Excel.

The study finds that Freelancing in Algeria is driven by the growing availability of digital platforms like Upwork and Fiverr; local demand for freelancers remains limited, contributing to a small percentage of the overall global online labor demand. The gig economy and freelancing in Algeria are youth-driven; gig workers are young people aged between 20-29 years old (65%), mainly male (80%), indicating a gender gap similar to the existing one in the traditional labor market, majoring in IT and Communication and active in the field of creative design. Algerian freelancers are highly educated, they use their professional network and work experience to get new projects without needing for university degrees as signals in the online gig labor market, while university education is important in skill building.

We contribute to the discourse into the gig economy and freelancing by concentrating on the Algerian context as a growing labor market contrasting with countries in the Global North. We provided insights on the dynamics and relationships among gig economy actors and the asymmetries this market reproduces.