{"id":50332,"date":"2018-04-30T17:14:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T21:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=50332"},"modified":"2018-08-09T15:02:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T19:02:13","slug":"nearly-two-thirds-of-global-workforce-in-the-informal-economy-un-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2018\/04\/nearly-two-thirds-of-global-workforce-in-the-informal-economy-un-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly two-thirds of global workforce in the \u2018informal\u2019 economy \u2013 UN study"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 61 per cent of the world\u2019s employed population \u2013 two billion people \u2013 earn their livelihoods in the informal sector, the United Nations <\/strong>labour agency said on Monday, stressing that a transition to the formal economy is critical to ensure rights\u2019 protection and decent working conditions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe high incidence of informality in all its forms has multiple adverse consequences for workers<\/a>, enterprises and societies and is a major challenge for the realization of decent work for all,\u201d said Rafael Diez de Medina, the Director of the Department of Statistics at the UN International Labour Organization (ILO).<\/p>\n

The findings are revealed in ILO\u2019s latest report, Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture<\/a>. The study also provides comparable estimates on the size of the informal economy and a statistical profile of the sector, using criteria from more than 100 countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving managed to measure this important dimension, now included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators framework, this can be seen as an excellent step towards acting on it, particularly thanks to more available comparable data from countries,\u201d added Mr. Diez de Medina.<\/p>\n

The geographic distribution of employment in the informal sector presents a striking picture.<\/p>\n

For hundreds of millions of workers, informality means a lack of social protection, rights at work and decent working conditions \u2013 report author Florence Bonnet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Africa, 85.8 per cent of employment is informal. The proportion is 68.2 per cent in Asia and the Pacific, 68.6 per cent in the Arab States, 40 per cent in the Americas, and just over 25 per cent in Europe and Central Asia.<\/p>\n

In all, 93 per cent of the world\u2019s informal employment is in emerging and developing countries.<\/p>\n

The report also found that informal employment is a greater source of jobs for men (63 per cent) than for women (58.1 per cent).<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of the two billion workers in informal employment worldwide, just over 740 million are women,\u201d said ILO, noting that they are mostly in informal employment in most low- and lower-middle income countries and are more often found to be the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Factors affecting level<\/strong>\u00a0of informality<\/strong>
\nEducation is a major factor affecting the level of informality, the study has shown, noting that as the level of education increases, the level of informality decreases.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who have completed secondary and tertiary education are less likely to be in informal employment compared to workers who have either no education or completed primary education,\u201d said ILO.<\/p>\n

In addition, people living in rural areas are almost twice as likely to be in informal employment as those in urban areas, it added.<\/p>\n

According to Florence Bonnet, one of the authors of the report, data on these issues are crucial to design effective policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor hundreds of millions of workers, informality means a lack of social protection, rights at work and decent working conditions, and for enterprises it means low productivity and lack of access to finance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Via UN News Centre<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 61 per cent of the world\u2019s employed population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":50335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-growth","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}