Kenya’s Digital First Responders: The Hidden Workforce Powering Global Tech

This report focuses on data workers in a growing technology hub: Nairobi, Kenya. Fueled by a young, educated, tech-savvy population, a workforce with cultural and linguistic proficiency, an economy with globally competitive labor costs, and significant government efforts to lure tech-related investment, Kenya has emerged as a center for digital labor. Thousands of Kenyans are employed by business process outsourcing companies (BPOs) or work for online labor platforms, undertaking data annotation and content moderation on behalf of major global corporations. A defining characteristic of the digital economy, in Kenya and elsewhere, is the complex web of outsourcing relationships. Major tech companies rarely employ labelers or moderators directly. Instead, they contract the work to large multinational BPOs or specialized platforms that, in turn, often subcontract parts of the work to smaller, local BPOs or use labor brokers to enlist workers from local labor markets. The layers of subcontracting in digital supply chains create opacity: workers at the end of the chain have no visibility into the end client whose products they are building or safeguarding. Outsourcing has profound impacts on working conditions, as layers of intermediaries skim margins and make it difficult for workers to hold lead firms accountable for labor violations or poor treatment. This report sheds light on the experiences of Kenyan data workers at the far reaches of digital supply chains and offers recommendations based on workers’ desires for improved working conditions.