Digital Japa, Labour-Market Competition, And the Wage Paradox in the Global South: Evidence from Employee-Cost Disclosures of Nigerian Listed Firms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jmrr/V2E11/2026-01Keywords:
Digital Japa, digital labour migration, CPI-adjusted growth, remote work, Nigeria, employee cost.Abstract
This study examines changes in aggregate employee costs among selected Nigerian listed companies in the context of digital labour mobility and the wage paradox. Using a descriptive archival design, it compares audited FY2023 and FY2024 financial statements for Zenith Bank, Access Holdings, MTN Nigeria, and Fidson Healthcare. Airtel Africa is retained as a contextual case but excluded from the core comparison because its 31 March year-end and US-dollar group reporting are not comparable with the December-year, naira-denominated reports. Nominal employee costs increased by 127.2% at Access Holdings, 64.1% at Zenith Bank, 41.4% at MTN Nigeria, and 19.7% at Fidson Healthcare. Using the National Bureau of Statistics’ 2024 annual-average CPI increase of 33.24%, CPI-adjusted employee-cost growth was 70.5%, 23.2%, 6.1%, and −10.1%, respectively. A sensitivity check using the December year-on-year inflation rate of 34.80% preserved the direction of the results. The findings show heterogeneous movements in company-level employee expenditure relative to consumer-price inflation. However, the reported figures represent aggregate employee-cost lines rather than wage rates or pay per worker and may reflect changes in workforce size, employee composition, bonuses, pensions, share-based awards, restructuring, or reporting scope. Country-level evidence of remote and platform-mediated work establishes the wider context of increasing digital labour-market participation in Nigeria but does not connect such activity to employees of the sampled firms. The study therefore does not establish that Digital Japa caused the observed cost changes or directly measure attrition, vacancies, retention pressure, or labour scarcity. Its contribution lies in providing a transparent and explicitly limited comparison of nominal and CPI-adjusted employee-cost changes from audited financial disclosures.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Dr Yaibimi Simon Ayogoi (Author)
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