Digital Technologies for SMEs and Job Creation in Africa

African economies are in dire need of digital technologies and job creation (World Bank, 2023; Strydom, 2021). This view is based on the fact that by 2100, Africa’s working population is anticipated to exceed 2.5 billion people, that is, more than three times the current working population (World Bank, 2023). Ironically, evidence shows a paradoxical relationship between the advancement of digital technologies and employment creation. To be specific, Brynjolfsson et al. (2018) showed that digital technological advancement such as machine learning has low correlation with jobs. Furthermore, Brynjolfsson et al. (2018) noted that few jobs are eligible for full automation and there is a high degree of variability in potential machine learning within jobs. At a country level, Strydom (2021) and Dauth et al. (2017) observed that for the period 1994–2014, because of automation, Germany experienced massive losses in the middle-skilled segment of the labour market.