INFORMAL ECONOMY BY ACTIVITY SECTOR

The current proportions of informal economy pervade almost all sectors of the economic activity of a country. It is more intense in some sectors than others and it can be part of both modern and traditional sectors, that is, activity sectors such as agriculture, industry, services, commerce, etc. have a large number of workers and economic units working under informal conditions.

The issue of informality has diverse features according to the different sectors, being the needs of training, technologies, etc. particular to each of them. Therefore there is a need for in-focus policies as a means to generate productive and quality employment with fair salaries.

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With the aim of reducing the negative impacts of globalisation on workers, and as a way to ensure them the access to decent work, there is a strong emphasis on the need to reduce informal economy as a deficit to decent work. Employment, education and training policies, credit and fiscal policies are the alternatives that several authors present as necessary tools to offer further and better opportunities to workers and economic units of the informal economy.

The State, trade union and employers' organisations as well as the partnerships between them have a great potential to design and implement programmes and policies oriented to tackle these issues. In fact, several countries in the region have implemented plans that aim at generating quality employment in a variety of sectors.

This site shows, on one hand, studies that reveal the employment problems in several sectors of the economy; on the other, the programmes and experiences carried out in different countries that focus their actions on specific sectors.

The lessons learned from the different experiences, as well as the best practices are an essential guide to future action.