1. “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.

This e-card has been shared countless times on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter by South Africans across the board and yet what they fail to realise that in a country where education standards are so low, this rise of technology and the “sharing economy” is a not necessarily a good thing.

Just the other day, a connection of mine on one of the social networks shared an article penned by Larry Fink, the CEO of financial services firm Blackrock. She highlighted this quote from Fink:

“As more and more people use sharing services for transportation, for example, personal vehicles will become less important, both financially and in terms of status. People may decide — and I think this would be the right decision for many — to take the cash they would spend on a vehicle and direct it instead towards smart investments. Think about the scale of this change — Uber was founded just five years ago. In another five years, car-sharing technologies could be replacing car ownership at a meaningful scale. That has significant implications for the global economy, simply by changing the way capital flows through it.”

“Amazing! Can’t wait for this,” she commented on her social media platform until somebody pointed out that her employer was one of the biggest financiers of cars in the country.

The reality is that technology is obliterating traditional jobs. There were 700 000 people employed in mining in 1990 and today that number is about to dip below 500 000. Platinum mines in particular are emphasising that mechanisation will take a further chunk out of this number over the next 24 months. In real terms, mining now contributes just 5% to the South African economy.

If you take into account beneficiation and the support economies, these numbers rise to 18% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 18% of the economy and 1.3 million jobs according to the Hanns Siedel Foundation . The bigger issue, is that every wage paid in the SA mining sector is supporting between 6 and 10 other people.

You have a slump in the global mining sector, it leads to unemployment. We know that China – despite its best efforts at stimulus – is slowing down which in turn leads to less demand for commodities. This slump is going to continue.

The result is the social unrest we are experiencing in South Africa right now. Low-skilled foreigners are coming to South Africa and they are competing for jobs in a number of sectors including manual labour in the mining sector.

Park that thought for a moment and consider that “strike season” is around the corner and the various trade unions are putting their demands forward. Solidarity has said that they are looking for 12% increases and are looking to raise the retirement age from 60 to 63, and in some cases 65. Their thinking is that labourers in the 60 to 65 age group have specialist automation skills that are important to retain in the midst of move to mechanisation.