London Vacancy: Clothing Care Job with Annual Salary of 90 Lakhs

Drivers working in the gig economy in Australia are now among the highest paid in the world following a tribunal decision described as 'world-leading'. These drivers work for online platforms such as Uber Eats and Hungry Panda and are traditionally considered independent contractors, meaning they do not receive standard employer benefits, including injury pay or leave.

However, the Australian Fair Work Commission has issued a ruling that not only significantly increases the hourly wage but also mandates employers to provide workplace accident insurance.

Starting August 17, gig economy workers in Australia will earn $31.30 AUD per hour (R357). Working eight hours a day for 22 days a month, this amounts to approximately $5500 AUD monthly (R62,800). This figure is higher than Australia's minimum wage of $26.44 AUD per hour (R302), which calculates to about R53,000 per month under the same conditions.

It is important to note that the cost of living in Australia is significantly higher than in countries like South Africa.

A Step in the Right Direction

National Union Secretary Michael Cain stated that 'gig economy workers in Australia have been outside our employment systems for too long.' He added that 'from Monday they will have an absolute world standard of conditions, which we will develop over time.'

Despite this decision being a significant victory for gig economy workers in Australia, similar workers in most other countries globally, including South Africa, do not yet have comparable guarantees. In 2023, the World Bank estimated that up to 435 million online gig workers worldwide were 'largely outside regular labour protection.'

According to AFP, in June, the International Labour Organization adopted a convention aimed at expanding job protection for gig economy workers. Since these workers are typically classified as independent contractors rather than employees, employers can often disregard requirements for minimum wage, workplace safety, and access to social security, reports AFP.

Changes Concerning South Africa

South African labour legislation provides some protection for gig economy workers. The Labour Relations Act includes a presumption that certain workers are employees rather than independent contractors, depending on factors such as control over work, working hours, and degree of integration into the business.

Nevertheless, many platform workers are currently classified as independent contractors and therefore do not benefit from standard labour protections, according to the Department of Labour. South Africa is also considering making substantial changes to its labour legislation. Proposed amendments would recognize gig economy workers as employees and grant dependent contractors more rights to organize and bargain collectively, although these changes have not yet taken effect.

Due to market forces, gig economy drivers in South Africa are unlikely to earn an amount close to their Australian counterparts, although it appears many earn more than the current minimum wage of R30.23 per hour, which equates to R5,320 per month working a standard 22 eight-hour days. The website FleetCalc, which provides financial and tax information for taxi drivers, estimates that Uber drivers in South Africa earn between R7,000 and R15,000 per month after expenses, with full-time drivers working over 50 hours a week earning an average of around R12,500 per month. This site notes that the figures are based on a 2025 survey conducted by the South African Taxi Drivers Association involving over 2000 drivers.

Typically, candidates wishing to obtain government employment must go through complex competitive exams, interviews, and other procedures. However, there are vacancies in India where selection is not based on written tests.

For employment in such positions, candidates are selected based on grades from the 10th or 12th grade, document verification, and sometimes interviews.

As part of the postal service, India Post regularly publishes vacancies for 10th-grade graduates in the rural postal service sector. To participate in the selection, an attestation of secondary education obtained from any accredited educational institution is required. No exams are conducted during the selection process here, and candidates receive a monthly salary of approximately 10 to 24 thousand rupees.

Furthermore, various railway departments conduct trainee recruitment under Indian Railways. For these positions, it is necessary to have a 10th-grade certificate and an ITI certificate. Selection is based on these two criteria, and no exam is organized for this position. Selected candidates receive a stipend of 7 to 9 thousand rupees monthly, and after completing the training, they may get the opportunity for permanent work in the railways.

Additionally, the Departments of Women and Child Affairs of state governments in several states recruit Anganwadi workers and assistants. Selection for these positions is based on academic performance rating or an interview. Selected candidates may be paid around 5 to 12 thousand rupees.

To apply for these positions, candidates should visit the official website of the respective departments, review the recruitment notification, follow the relevant link, fill in all requested data, and then pay the registration fee and submit the application form.

During South Africa's Women's Month, women who lead companies, create businesses, and shape public policy are celebrated. However, upon closer examination of the highest levels of corporate and entrepreneurial life, a contradiction becomes apparent: while women's talent is becoming increasingly visible, their advancement often stalls before reaching the top.

Traditionally, explanations for this phenomenon have been attributed to workplace discrimination, unequal access to capital, and the concentration of women in sectors with low growth potential. Although all these factors are real, there is another barrier that remains in plain sight: the unpaid mental, emotional, and logistical labor that many women perform before, during, and after official working hours.

Before a woman becomes a leader or founder, she often simultaneously fulfills multiple roles: a daughter coordinating parental care; a sister maintaining family ties; a wife managing emotional labor in a partnership; a mother monitoring child development; and also a household manager, financial manager, and health coordinator—tracking records, budgets, medications, and logistics that rarely cease during the workday.

Even if physical duties are divided or outsourced, she is often the person expected to remember, anticipate, and coordinate these tasks. Only after completing all of this does she arrive at the roles for which she is paid: as an employee or business owner—and ultimately, as an individual.

This burden is not merely about being busy; it depletes specific cognitive resources essential for high performance. Repeated small decisions across various roles lead to decision fatigue, which reduces the capacity for complex strategic choices at the most critical moments. Constant switching between caregiving and work fragments attention, hindering access to the sustained focus required for strategic work.

Emotional care—for children, aging parents, partners—drains the same reserves needed for conflict management, team motivation, and maintaining composure under professional pressure. Financial and family concerns continue to operate as a background mental process throughout the day, constituting a form of 'mental load' that persists even when the tasks themselves are delegated.

The consequences are professional, not just personal. Women may have less time and energy for networking, developing leadership skills, and participating in high-visibility assignments, which often influence promotion decisions. These caregiving responsibilities also tend to intensify in the years when many professionals are striving for leadership positions—through raising children and, increasingly, caring for aging parents within the 'sandwich generation.'

Female entrepreneurs face similar disadvantages. Time spent coordinating care is unavailable for product development, market expansion, and investor relations. Funding systems can exacerbate this deficit if they interpret constant availability, extensive travel, or after-hours event attendance as evidence of commitment. This creates a system that can mistakenly equate freedom from caregiving duties with ambition.

Technology can reduce the administrative friction around each of these roles through targeted use. For household coordination, shared calendars and platforms like Cozi or FamilyWall can move responsibilities out of one person's memory and make them visible to the entire family. For financial management, tools like 22seven or automated payments reduce repetitive administrative work that would otherwise fall on one household financial manager.

In healthcare coordination, telemedicine, digital health records, and medication reminder apps simplify tracking appointments and caring for children and elderly parents. For daily logistics, grocery delivery services and meal planning apps can eliminate hours of manual weekly planning. Regarding professional and entrepreneurial roles, planning tools, cloud collaboration platforms, CRM systems, automated invoicing, and responsible AI use can reduce repetitive administrative burdens.

Virtual participation in conferences, training, and networking can also expand access to commercial and developmental opportunities for those whose caregiving duties restrict travel. With consistent application across all these roles, the recovered time is not insignificant—it often equals several working days per month. However, the most valuable benefit is not that women can fit more tasks into an already overloaded day. It is that they can reclaim precious attention for strategic thinking, rest, learning, relationships, and work that genuinely contributes to career and business growth. Technology should create space for life and leadership, not generate the expectation that women must become infinitely more productive.

This distinction matters. Technology cannot revise unequal partnerships, ensure affordable childcare, or convince workplaces to stop rewarding presence. Furthermore, access to it is unevenly distributed. Data costs, unreliable connectivity, subscription fees, and varying levels of digital literacy mean that women bearing the heaviest burdens may be the least effective users of assistive tools. There is also a deeper risk: if the responsibility for each role remains unchanged, digital tools may only make women more efficient managers of an unfair division of labor. A shared family calendar is only useful if responsibility is truly shared. Automation can reduce the task, but it cannot decide who should perform it.

Employers who want to see more women in leadership must look beyond ceremonial campaigns and examine how the work itself is designed. Flexible schedules must be genuine and career-safe. Productivity must be measured by contribution and results, not by desk visibility or 24/7 availability. Support must explicitly recognize eldercare alongside childcare. Women must also be actively sponsored for complex assignments and network influence—opportunities they may lack the time to seek out independently. Investors and funds must reconsider criteria that reward unlimited availability and may include practical operational support in funding packages, easing the exact type of administrative load described above.

At home, redistribution is more important than assistance. Partners and family members must jointly take on the functions of anticipation, remembering, and organizing across all these roles, rather than simply executing tasks assigned to the person who remains the primary project manager of the household. At the national level, investments in affordable childcare, eldercare, connectivity, and digital skills remain critically important to ensure these tools reach the women who need them most. Women do not need another message to work harder. Their capability, ambition, and resilience are already evident in all the roles listed. The question is whether our homes, workplaces, funding systems, and technologies will consume this capability through invisible labor. In this Women's Month, progress should be measured not only by how many women reach the boardroom, but also by whether the burden they carried to get there has finally become visible—and whether society is ready to share it.