Across African cities, a three-dollar blouse ordered on a phone is quietly unraveling decades of local manufacturing and retail labor. Shein and Temu, two Chinese e-commerce giants, have claimed 37 percent of South Africa's online clothing market in just four years, displacing thousands of jobs that will not return without deliberate intervention. The tension at the heart of this story is ancient: the gap between what is cheapest for the individual and what is most sustaining for the community. African governments now face the enduring question of whether a continent can be both a market and a
Chinese e-commerce giants Shein and Temu threaten African retail jobs and local industries
8,100 retail and manufacturing jobs failed to materialize in South Africa in 2024, with projections of 34,000+ additional job losses by 2030 across the sector.