Unseen Economy

Tabiya and Harambee's work on the unseen economy is an effort to recognize and utilize human capital built through unpaid work done by young jobseekers, particularly women.

We usually think of "employment" as work that earns money. But many people do important unpaid work at home and in their communities, like caring for family and community members, managing households, organizing community events or volunteering at local organizations. This work helps develop valuable skills. However, these skills are often overlooked in the job market.

The problem lends itself well to Tabiya's skills-first approach in the evaluation of human capability. In South Africa, 750,000 young women say they are not economically active due to homemaking activities. However, being a homemaker, does not need to be a sentence. Recognizing the human capital developed in this "unseen" work can unlock pathways into paid employment for these young women and many others like them who are skilled through "alternative" routes.

We start by looking at how people spend their time and then match these activities to skills contained within ESCO, our skills framework base of choice. This groundwork on taxonomy expansion is relatively straightforward to do, but equally complex to take to market.

Changing Narratives

Our shared understanding of what is and isn't "work", what is and isn't "employable" have been normatively developed over centuries. These perceptions exist both among jobseekers and employers. Skills gained in the unseen economy are not considered as viable or polished as those gained within a seen economy.

Changing narratives surrounding skills acquired in the unseen economy is a necessary step both to ensure that job-seekers' are aware of skills they have developed, but also that these highlighted skills are credible in the eyes of their future employers. Tabiya's works in this space on two fronts:

1. Compass for self-discovery: Many people don't realize the value of skills they've gained from unpaid work. Developed with support from Google.org, Compass is an AI-enabled conversational tool help job seekers explore and discover all their skills. The tool is particularly useful for this work in that through candid interactions, it facilitates a structured exploration and presentation of people's unseen skills, that many may struggle to think about and articulate in "professional terms".

2. Research and Advocacy

   1. Producing statistical evidence: Data collected through Harambee's SAYouth platform and various (quasi) experiments are used to build compelling evidence on the quality of skills acquired in the unseen economy, relative to the seen economy.

   2. Advocacy: By sharing success stories and making scientific evidence understandable to employers, we aim to challenging their biases regarding the skillfulness of job-seekers from the unseen economy.

How Skilled are Unseen Workers ?

Including the unseen part of the economy in an usable taxonomy of occupations and skills comes with numerous challenges linked to the difficulty to grasp the skill content of daily tasks and to the diversity of daily habits among young job-seekers. We identified 3 key challenges associated with skills acquired in the unseen economy:

• Transferability: Skills acquired in the unseen economy may not be directly useable in formal jobs i.e. some certification or skills-testing may be required for transferability.

For instance, many care-takers acquire basic - but also sometimes quite advanced - medical skill if they have been caring for a dependent adult - either and elderly individual or someone made dependent by a physical or mental disability or disease. However, it is very unlikely that those skills are useable in a formal setting, i.e. as a doctor or a nurse, as these two occupations require specific qualifications and trainings under strict regulations.

• Proficiency: the level of skill acquired in the unseen economy may not be comparable to the average level of skill of someone performing the same tasks in a formal job.

For instance, a young job-seeker who has acquired cooking skills by talking care of children and feeding them may not have acquired skilled advanced enough - say, cutting techniques - to use them in a high-end restaurant.

• Likelihood: performing a certain unseen activity does not imply that the person is using all skills potentially involved or required in this activity, particularly in formal jobs and for complex tasks.

For instance, if a young job seeker declares that he "prepares meals and snacks", it it very likely that they know how to prepare sandwiches and basic dishes. However, it is quite unlikely that they have advanced cooking skills like baking complex deserts - say, an opera cake.

Because of these three concerns, skills acquired in the unseen economy lack overall credibility, or in economic terms, signaling value. One qualifies a skill acquired in the unseen economy as "credible" if employers believe the claim of a young job-seekers declaring that they have acquired that skill in the unseen economy. This issue of credibility is not as forceful in the seen economy as employers are less likely to cast doubts on skills acquired in a formal setup - say, a firm - or in a very identifiable informal occupation - such as informal specialized seller.

Addressing the issue of the credibility of skills acquired in the unseen economy - and therefore issues of transferability, proficiency, and likelihood - is essential to Tabiya's goal of changing narratives around unseen activities. On the one hand, our task is to highlight the skills acquired in the unseen economy. On the other hand, acting as if skills acquired in the unseen economy were as credible as skills acquired in formal jobs would do disservice to young job-seekers from the unseen economy. Indeed, employers ultimately take hiring decisions based on their own beliefs and perception of the credibility of skills.