The term “micro-jobs” existed many years ago, but its concept has recently grown to comprise more online tasks in response to the widespread use of the Internet all over the world. This has definitely brought a lot of benefits to different categories of people. However, many are still skeptical about this type of work and doubt it is worth being considered a reliable source of money.

In the beginning, it is so important to define micro jobs as a lot of people are unaware of their existence in the first place. “Micro jobs are a type of temporary work that involves completing assignments or tasks for a fee per assignment. Micro jobs can include work that is completed online or in-person.”[1] In-person micro-tasks include one-time babysitting, dog walking, handyman work, and so on. Online ones are so many; for example, writing blogs & articles, translation, transcription, data entry, graphic design, filling in surveys, designing websites, etc. 

In MENA Alliances, we believe that although micro-jobs are neither a full-time type of job nor a steady source of money, they still make a big profit for both the company and the workers. And here is why:

Source of good money

Despite the fact that a micro job includes doing small tasks for a tiny amount of money, it is worth mentioning that the sum of money one collects from this type of job mainly depends on the number of tasks one accomplishes. So let’s say that a digital task pays 0.20$ and takes 3 mins to complete. In an hour, one will most probably finish 20 of these tasks which means collecting 4$ on an hourly basis. If one works on this type of task for 6 hours a day, this will pay them 24$. Consequently, with continuous work on these tasks, one will almost earn a total of 528$ a month – taking into consideration 8 days of the weekend. That may not be an amount of money that one can rely on for a living – especially in developed countries – but it can help in one’s daily expenses.

Ali was one of the successful examples we had in MENA Alliances. 

He was a university student when he joined our latest micro-job project in which he had to accomplish several mini digital tasks based on AI. He spent his first days of work getting trained on how to carry out the assigned tasks. Later on, he started the real work and increased the number of hours and amount of time he spent accomplishing the work which paid him 500-1000 $ for several months. Thanks to this large income, he could pay off his university’s debts. 

For a student who has no technical skills or experience that could qualify him to land a job in his field of study, that was absolutely a large quantity of money. More importantly, this experience didn’t only pay Ali enough, but it also made him believe in the existence of remote work and how it could be a good source of money if one pays adequate attention to it.

Stepping stone for students and fresh graduates

It is quite hard for students and fresh graduates to land full-time jobs with zero practical experience and no skills. Therefore, they usually search for internships and volunteer opportunities in which they can cultivate their skills and enrich their CVs. Micro-jobs usually do not need any complex skills or experience, and this makes them a perfect learning experience for many.

Since we – in MENA Alliances- are committed to discovering the talented women and youth in the MENA region, we consider micro-jobs as a stepping stone for the talents to start and build a thriving career. Consequently, we established our MENA Alliances training coding program to upskills our talents who are passionate about investing in their soft and technical skills to gain sustainable job opportunities in the tech industry.

Moreover, as our workers accomplish their tasks completely remotely, they get adapted to remote work – which is the recent trend of the business world- as a plus profit!

Huda from Gaza is a great example of this case.

Huda has graduated from English Department and worked as a teacher in a small local teaching center in her neighborhood. Working on one of our micro-job projects was her first remote job ever. This opportunity didn’t only pay her enough to cover her individual expenses, but it also opened the doors of the world of freelancing and remote work; the approach which she adopted for her career life later on.

Convenient for housewives and mothers

Women who got married right after graduation and focused too much on their families are usually totally detached from the work mode. And to put them back on the work track, they need a cushy type of job as a warm-up. Micro-jobs projects will not only improve women’s soft skills to ease their return to work, but they also can make them gain money independently increasing their self-confidence and motivating them to invest their free time and efforts in a real job. Moreover, a lot of mothers choose not to go out and work for the sake of their children, so working on such easy tasks at their homes on their own schedule will certainly be all that they ask for.

“My advice to all moms is to invest well in themselves by organizing their time and working remotely at home. As long as they plan their day, they can do anything!”

This is Amal, one of MENA Alliances’ ambassadors who previously worked on one of our micro-job, AI-based projects. Through this experience, she learned how to take care of all her household duties while being a productive person on her job, as well.

Amal is one of our inspiring examples of how our micro-job projects could change women’s lives and encourage them to get back to work after long years of hiatus. And as we know for sure women everywhere need a chance to show off their abilities, we keep on bringing such projects to the Middle East and North Africa opening doors to thousands of women in the region.

Discover hidden gems

A lot of passionate and talented youths are buried either because of the rareness of opportunities or their lack of experience on how to position themselves in the labor market. Therefore, if nearshoring and outsourcing companies bring micro-job projects into their countries, more young people will have the chance to shine and see the light; especially that such projects usually need a large workforce to finish on time.

Yasmeen from Gaza is a great example of this! 

Yasmeen is a diligent, smart, and hard-working English Education graduate whose first work opportunity was with MENA Alliances. She basically worked on micro-tasks of transcription and stood out as the most passionate and active member within a team of 20 youths, thus was granted a position of team leader for another project. And recently, as Yasmeen showed a high degree of proficiency in communicating and dealing with employees’ matters, she is appointed to the position of Human Resources Director. Such energy and dedication wouldn’t have been invested if such an opportunity was not given to her. Yasmeen is one example, but we have actually got many of MENA Alliances’ hidden gems throughout similar projects of micro-jobs.

For that reason, we in MENA Alliances believe that micro jobs do not only bring benefits to those who work on them individually, but they are rather advantageous for outsourcing and nearshoring companies as for the talented youths they uncover.

In the MENA countries, micro-jobs are unfortunately not as famous as they are in other countries. Therefore, as we are aware of their benefits, we work on these types of projects engaging as many women and youths as to catch up with the great progress that the developed countries have achieved throughout the previous decades.