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108 WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2016<br />
Figure 2.6 In Brazil, internet and software use by firms throughout the economy is<br />
associated with higher earnings<br />
Average annual wage growth, by firms’ ICT intensity and workers’ wage levels, 2009–13<br />
a. All workers<br />
b. New hires from last job<br />
0.7<br />
0.7<br />
0.6<br />
0.6<br />
0.5<br />
0.5<br />
Percent<br />
0.4<br />
0.3<br />
Percent<br />
0.4<br />
0.3<br />
0.2<br />
0.2<br />
0.1<br />
0.1<br />
0<br />
0<br />
Low wages Medium wages High wages Low wages Medium wages High wages<br />
Low-intensity ICT Medium-intensity ICT High-intensity ICT<br />
Source: Dutz and others 2015, for the WDR 2016. Data at http://bit.do/WDR2016-Fig2_6.<br />
Note: The categories of wage levels are terciles. ICT = information and communication technology.<br />
South Africa is already using Watson, IBM’s artificial<br />
intelligence system, to assist in customer service. 42<br />
Outsourcing opportunities are increasing in other<br />
areas through online work, providing workers and<br />
firms with access to larger, even global, employment<br />
marketplaces (box 2.2). People can work for any<br />
employer anywhere, with parties buying and selling<br />
services that can be delivered online. Upwork (formerly<br />
Elance–oDesk), the largest online outsourcing<br />
service, had 2.8 million job postings worldwide in<br />
2014. 43 Online jobs range from the very simple that<br />
can be completed in a few minutes—such as signups,<br />
forum participation, review writing, and website<br />
testing—to the more complex, such as software development,<br />
translation services, data entry, and administrative<br />
support. The online work market, though<br />
still a tiny fraction of overall employment, is worth<br />
around US$1 billion annually, up from US$700 million<br />
in 2009. 44<br />
Impact-outsourcing brings online work to vulnerable<br />
communities. Still in its infancy—employing<br />
around 150,000 workers, or 3 percent of the total BPO<br />
industry—it is taking hold in India, Kenya, and South<br />
Africa. The government of Kerala, India, outsources<br />
information technology services to cooperatives<br />
of women from poor families through the Kudumbashree<br />
(“Prosperity of the Family”) project. Average<br />
earnings were US$45 a month, with close to 80 per-<br />
cent of women earning at least US$1 a day. Nine in ten<br />
of the women had previously not worked outside the<br />
home. 45 Samasource, RuralShores, and Digital Divide<br />
Data are three private service providers. Samasource<br />
splits jobs into microwork for almost 6,400 workers,<br />
mostly in Ghana, Haiti, India, Kenya, and Uganda, on<br />
average more than doubling their previous income. 46<br />
Online work can prove particularly beneficial for<br />
women, youth, older workers, and the disabled, who<br />
may prefer the flexibility of working from home<br />
or working flexible hours. On freelancer.com—an<br />
online outsourcing platform with more than 10,000<br />
microworkers globally—57 percent of workers are<br />
between 16 and 25 years of age. 47 In Elance (part of<br />
Upwork), 44 percent of workers are women, compared<br />
with just 25 percent in the nonagricultural<br />
economy (figure 2.7). In a survey on microworkers<br />
.com carried out for this Report, 27 percent of workers<br />
see being able to work at home and flexible hours as<br />
the main advantages of working online. These are<br />
the reasons most cited, even more often than earning<br />
extra income, especially among women (figure 2.8).<br />
Internet-enabled entrepreneurship and<br />
self-employment<br />
By lowering information barriers and costs, the<br />
internet increases experimentation and gives rise to<br />
new opportunities for entrepreneurship and self-