Survey of Workers and Working Conditions in Construction and Manufacturing Chinese and Other Firms in Angola and Ethiopia, 2016-2017

Chinese investments and construction activities have generated widespread controversy. However, there has been a notable lack of systematic evidence regarding the conditions of employment in these jobs. The ‘Industrial Development, Construction and Employment in Africa (IDCEA)’ research project conducted systematic comparative surveys of firms and workers in Ethiopia and Angola on employment conditions in both manufacturing and construction. Our quantitative worker survey covered 76 firms and 1,519 detailed questionnaire-interviews with workers employed in manufacturing activities and infrastructure construction (mainly road building) in Angola and Ethiopia (682 in Angola and 837 in Ethiopia). The samples included workers in Chinese, Ethiopian, Angolan and other foreign firms, among the leading companies in the target sectors for this research. The aim was to provide comparative data at 3 levels: country, sector and firm. Detailed information about individual workers was also collected, in order to build profiles of construction and manufacturing workers in these countries, as well as to account for labour market segmentation.

In recent years research on the effects of foreign direct investment on African economies and labour markets has gained a new focus with the re-emergence of concerns with broad structural transformation, and the development of industry and infrastructure in particular. In this context, the dramatic upsurge of activity by Chinese firms (both investors and contractors) in sub-Saharan African manufacturing and construction since the 2000s has sparked both discussion and controversy. However, despite some recent advances in research, empirically grounded and comparative evidence on the effects of foreign direct investment and contractors with regards to job creation, skill development, wages and working conditions has remained limited. Our project focuses on gathering concrete information on the employment effects of firms investing in manufacturing and building infrastructure. The research concentrates on the two sectors in which the employment contributions of these firms are particularly important: industry and construction (for the latter, specifically in road infrastructure). The project completed extensive qualitative scoping research, desk reviews and two large-scale surveys of workers in Ethiopia (839 interviews) and Angola (682). Qualitative data collection continued until July 2018, firm management surveys were completed in 2018, and subsequently additional longitudinal data were collected through phone surveys in late 2018 and early 2019. Data have been processed, analysed and findings disseminated in 2019. We find that working conditions in Chinese firms are broadly comparable to other leading firms in same sectors once individual workers characteristics, sector attributes and other firm characteristics are taken into account. The national context is also critical as important differences in job localisation rates and working conditions are found between Angola and Ethiopia. To obtain a free account please register with the UKDA.