Today’s world is characterised by increased connectivity, which has led to a rapid digitalisation of the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of digital transformation. It has been estimated that global Internet traffic in 2022 will exceed all Internet traffic up to 2016. Digitalisation is generating new ways of employment such as “internet-based virtual work, on-demand work through online platforms, crowd working and other new forms of revenue-generating but unpaid work”.
This has provided the opportunity for a new narrative for livelihoods. Like no other time in the past, we have the potential for education and employment for millions of people who were previously marginalised, excluded from the centres of global economic activity. The current potential for digital livelihoods for displaced people, including refugees, is huge.
The Global Skills Gap: An Opportunity for Refugees and Migrants
The increase in the quantity (and quality) of tech and technology-enabled jobs has meant that there is an increasing demand for talent. Evidence from a RAND study, commissioned by Salesforce, highlights that 87% of executives are experiencing or are expected to experience a skills gap in their workforce. One of the key drivers for this skill gap is that the demand for tech talent is outpacing an already short supply, along with high costs and disorganised approaches in traditional education. In parallel to digital skills, there is a demand among employers for soft/human/durable skills. The WEF 2020 Future of Jobs Report revealed that the skills that employers perceive as important for the jobs of the future are critical thinking, analysis, problem-solving, self-management, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. In fact, according to employers, the talent gap in soft skills is more pronounced than in hard digital skills.
Why Remote Work?
Even before the shift triggered by the COVID pandemic, the need to access talent not bound by geography encouraged a handful of tech start-ups to operate remotely, with no physical offices. These companies, often described as “remote-first” or “fully distributed,” hire talent globally and across time zones (companies such as GitLab, Doist, and Remote are examples). As the list of companies announcing that remote working practices within their organisations will remain (Dropbox, Twitter, Shopify, and Slack for example), this provides greater employment opportunities for individuals living away from global financial capitals, including refugees and migrants.
Na’amal was born out of the founder’s (Lorraine Charles) research and observations about the economic situation of refugees in the Middle East. She knew that there had to be a better way for forcibly displaced people to earn a living than to be subjected to informal work in precarious conditions and in indignity, while taking advantage of the digitalisation and technology. Na’amal aims to fill this gap.
Na’amal is an England and Wales registered social enterprise (member of Social Enterprise UK) and non-profit that addresses the remote talent tech needs of companies by providing access to skilled refugee candidates. Na’amal provides refugees and other underrepresented communities training in marketable skills, with a focus on the human/soft skills, collaborating with organisations that train in digital skills, which are required in the global labour market. We then link them to dignified digital remote work.
Training Programme
Developing Na’amal’s training component was our first priority. Na’amal Remote Work Readiness Programme has been developed to ensure that graduates have the skills to be successful working remotely.
