The Rising Costs of Labour-Intensive Data Collection in Africa: Challenges and Realities

In this article from the recently released Global Prices Study 2025, industry expert and the report’s sounding board member, Jonathan Karanja, delves into the realities and challenges of labour-intensive data collection in Africa.

Post-COVID data trends tell a story of a surge in the costs of labour-intensive data collection methodologies such as face-to-face (F2F) and telephonic interviews. These labour-intensive approaches are still preferred by different clients, due to the need for reach, representation, and data assurance.

Some macro factors contributing to the escalating cost of these approaches include political dispensations, inflation, logistical complexities, a changing regulatory framework, and heightened expertise requirements. The impact of these macro factors differs across African countries.

Labour-driven data collection has witnessed a rising trend, and three key factors driving costs are (1) enumerator compensation, (2) fieldwork transport and (3) Respondent access and cooperation.

1. Enumerator compensation has grown significantly owing to the increased labour expectation for higher remuneration. Delivering high-quality data in Africa demands deep local knowledge—skilled enumerators, language proficiency, and cultural sensitivity are non-negotiable. However, retaining trained field teams has grown costly due to wage inflation and labour competition from NGOs and development agencies. Expectation for higher remuneration by research actors is justifiably driven by higher education levels amongst the average interviewer and growing compliance with stronger labour laws by research firms. For CATI, this remains one of the most significant cost drivers during data collection. Additionally, the need for speciality enumerators on languages and experience escalates the wage component.

2. Transportation, like other regions of the world, has risen due to rising fuel prices and currency fluctuations. Though transport modes and routes have increased access to new regions and communities, the cost to access respondents has equally gone up. To manage timelines on some studies, exclusive hire of research vehicles is needed, especially in rural areas.

3. Respondent access was much easier several years ago. Today as population witness access to information through digital social connectivity, they become aware of practices such as market research, the value of data, and the value of their own time.

Statutory compliance in consumer/respondent protection has seen the adherence to data protection and privacy guidelines across African countries, even where the local laws may not be fully articulated on the issues. This positive step forward allows informed participants to proceed with surveys, as well as terminate participation. This has led to a decline in response rates, especially in urban settings and among mobile telephone respondents. In some countries, telephone interviews, though less logistically demanding, now face higher telecom costs and declining response rates, forcing researchers to invest more in incentives and call attempts. This means that to achieve the same sample of 100 interviews, the team will take more man-hours, thus increasing the cost of wages, transport, call centres, airtime and incentives. 

In all this, technology remains a silver lining. Technology has helped to mitigate increased cost, with the various platforms that have allowed data collection for CAPI and F2F to be smooth, seamless and with minimal repetition due to logistical checks. Quality assurance is a cost. Technology has helped ensure that during data collection, quality is assured real-time, without a need to revisit or re-call the respondents. Investing in local partnerships and technology-driven solutions continues to enhance efficiency, but traditional methods remain indispensable where digital penetration is low.

The cost of labour-intensive data collection methods will continue to rise into the near future, but their use will slowly decline as a digitally aware population becomes more aware and responsive to methodologies such as online and panel research.

Esomar’s Global Prices Study is a biannual study that delves into the prices of market research projects across the globe. Download the report to benchmark your prices against the global, regional and country-level median prices.