A new enhanced database on informal employment in more than 40 countries worldwide has been produced by the ILO in partnership with Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). Based on official statistics produced by National Statistical offices and calculated by the ILO and other partners like WIEGO and the ILO/SIALC, the conceptual framework for the statistical measurement of informal employment recommended by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians was used to assure comparability using country-specific data on: i) Employment in the informal sector, including formal employment (if any) in the informal sector, . (ii) Informal employment outside the informal sector and (iii) Total informal employment.

The ILO Department of Statistics and EMP/POLICY are therefore launching a new set of indicators which will be regularly updated worldwide and hopes to enhance the number of countries which will be adopting the necessary changes in their survey questionnaires through technical cooperation, in order to have more comparable information on such an important topic for understanding employment and decent work worldwide. The database is part of a forthcoming publication by ILO and WIEGO.