EFC/ILO Symposium on The Dilemmas, Issues and Challenges of the Informal Economy
This Symposium will address many issues that have been identified globally as those requiring attention. It will identify the reasons for the pervasiveness of the informal economy and possible remedies to address the relevant issues that this economy raises. Special sessions on the informal economy in Sri Lanka will address our situation and needs as well as how employers and their organizations can help this economy. The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon decided to hold this Symposium at this juncture particularly because the informal economy is once again one of the items of the Agenda of the International Labour Organization’s Conference in June 2018.
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About 70% of the global population is in the informal economy. The forecast is that this economy will increase rather than decrease. Its size is such that despite its negative features, it contributes substantially to the economies of the countries in which it flourishes. These countries would be poorer but for the informal economy.
Some prescriptions on how to deal with this economy would have the effect of destroying it, rather than identifying the reasons for its existence, and how people can be helped to move into the formal economy voluntarily. Little recognition is given to the fact that this economy is a place where much entrepreneurship is developed, and that not everyone wishes to move into the formal economy. Nor is it sufficiently recognized that this economy is a response to poverty. Further, a substantial number of people other than those working in it are dependent on this economy since it provides goods and services to the poorer segments of society. It is also not sufficiently recognized that the perpetuation of this economy is connected to the existence of extractive, and not inclusive, policies and institutions which benefit a few at the expense of the majority, and that corrupt and inefficient bureaucracies are important factors that explain its existence. There is also a failure on the part of policy makers to develop and implement policies which would expand the formal economy and thereby increase employment and business opportunities which may be seized by some in the informal economy.
Some prescriptions on how to deal with this economy would have the effect of destroying it, rather than identifying the reasons for its existence, and how people can be helped to move into the formal economy voluntarily. Little recognition is given to the fact that this economy is a place where much entrepreneurship is developed, and that not everyone wishes to move into the formal economy. Nor is it sufficiently recognized that this economy is a response to poverty. Further, a substantial number of people other than those working in it are dependent on this economy since it provides goods and services to the poorer segments of society. It is also not sufficiently recognized that the perpetuation of this economy is connected to the existence of extractive, and not inclusive, policies and institutions which benefit a few at the expense of the majority, and that corrupt and inefficient bureaucracies are important factors that explain its existence. There is also a failure on the part of policy makers to develop and implement policies which would expand the formal economy and thereby increase employment and business opportunities which may be seized by some in the informal economy.