The ‘app’ for workers, carpenters and service employees

Recently, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) found that the proportion of informal workers in Colombia was 58%, between December 2022 and February 2023. This is not a minor fact and it is no secret to anyone that most of These professionals are part of the front line, and mainly, those who are laborers, carpenters, painters, domestic workersamong many other items that are affected by situations such as poor pay or work accidents that are not covered.

(They certify construction workers).

The figures also show that many of these Colombians receive a salary below the minimum. Even, according to another Dane report, it was evidenced that between 2019 and 2021 the proportion of people who earn less than a minimum wage increased, since, in 2019 the proportion was 41.9% of the employed while by 2021 the figure climbed to 45.4%, which was equivalent to 9.2 million workers.

In this sense, for some time technological platforms such as Liberr have been concerned about these workers and have developed a digital space that connects many of these professionals, independent or entrepreneurs with users who require a variety of services such as unclogging a pipe, painting the house, disinfect a space or carry out a repair, among many other things.

However, as Jorge Ramírez, co-founder and CEO of this startup, explains, two of the great benefits that these professionals receive is, in principle, economic growth, since technologies manage to increase the demand for their services by 15%, and this Another is the fact that they have a life policy and an accident policy at all times when offering their services through the platform.

(Norway, with full employment and no workers).

“The world is constantly evolving and technology allows us to streamline processes, increase our productivity, be able to provide immediate responses, change traditional methods, make life easier for people and companies, but they are also an opportunity to generate a positive impact on society. , create employment alternatives for workers in a way that protects both them and users and that can even become a catalyst for the economy and social development”, Ramirez assured.

For this reason, this platform demands a series of requirements from all service providers, whether independent or corporate, the main one being criminal and judicial records, to later corroborate the experience through the documentation provided.

It is not minor to point out that by 2021, 513,857 work accidents were reported in Colombia, that is, an average of 1,408 per day. Among the industries where these events occurred the most were agriculture, livestock, hunting and forestry, with a rate of 13.75 accidents per 100 workers; mines and portfolios (12.59); manufacturing industries (7.7) and real estate (3.47), according to estimates by the Colombian Security Council.

The CEO of Liberr considers that for a long time he observed a context in which most of these digital platforms did not tend to care about the social security of workers, which usually puts them in all kinds of dangers.

“It was for this reason that from the beginning we focused on having a business model that would not only add value to the needs of users, but would also care about the integrity of service providers so that they felt safe carry out the work they were carrying out”added Ramirez.

To date, in Panama, Liberr has more than 15,000 suppliers in different services in their categories (beauty, construction, logistics, maintenance, mining, etc.), however, now the manager points out that Colombia being a much larger market expected that number to reach more than 100,000.

Likewise, workers and entrepreneurs who are part of this platform have access to a section known as Libert Academy, an academic space in which technical training in different areas and professional coaching are provided so that they obtain tools in soft skills that allow them to grow personally and professionally.

In turn, with the idea of ​​promoting greater financial inclusion and having a tool to better manage their personal finances, this startup offers these workers a Liberr Mastercard card, in which they can receive payment for the services they carried out directly and automatically, in addition to enjoying the benefits of the issuer.

For some years now, it has been debated that one of the biggest challenges facing platforms in Latin America is the occupational health and safety that they offer workers, and from now on, both public and private initiatives are beginning to be observed that are concerned for this category of workers.