“Although it is hard to generalize concerning the quality of informal employment, it most often means poor employment conditions and is associated with increasing poverty. Some of the characteristic features of informal employment are lack of protection in the event of non-payment of wages, compulsory overtime or extra shifts, lay-offs without notice or compensation, unsafe working conditions and the absence of social benefits such as pensions, sick pay and health insurance. Women, migrants and other vulnerable groups of workers who are excluded from other opportunities have little choice but to take informal low-quality jobs.” (from ILO statistics website)
Informal work is an important reality in the ENP-S countries and doesn’t only concern vulnerable groups but a large portion of the working population. The measurement of informal work and the economic impact of informal sector is of a high interest worldwide but faces difficulties because of definitions that are not totally harmonized and data collection processes following different modalities and at a high cost. Several international organisations such as ILO and EUROSTAT intervene with guidance and coordination for the improvement and the harmonisation of statistics in this area. The statistics of informal work are limitedly or partially addressed by the ENP-South countries. The issue is addressed more systematically in Tunisia, in the framework of an ongoing twinning project with France, Italy and Lithuania, and in Morocco. Some countries still need to set a definition for the informal sector and some started introducing some questions relating to the measure of informality in existing surveys. Overall, about half of the ENP-South countries want to learn more on the methodologies and the practices for producing statistics on employment in informal sector that are implemented in other countries within and outside the region.
The regional workshop aims to answer this request. It will be an opportunity to share and to discuss the conceptual frameworks relevant for statistics on informal work and the sources, the methods and the indicators adopted to that effect. A special focus will be given to the use that can be made of these statistics for measuring the impact of informal work on the national economies through the System of National Accounts (SNAs).
The workshop will benefit from technical contributions from the ILO, Eurostat, the European Training Foundation, the national statistical institutes of France (INSEE) and Italy (ISTAT) as well as DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Analyses de long terme), a Mixed Research Unit from the IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) and the University Paris Dauphine specialised in the measurement and the analysis of the informal sector.
ILO: http://www.ilo.org/stat/lang–en/index.htm
Eurostat: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/fr/home
INSEE: https://www.insee.fr/fr/accueil
ISTAT: http://www.istat.it/en/
DIAL: http://www.dial.ird.fr/
For more information, please contact MEDSTAT4@expertisefrance.fr