What are the employment rates in informal economy across the globe?

The informal economy can be defined as that segment of the economy which is not regulated by the government. Also described as the grey economy, an informal economy is not taxed and activities in this segment are not included in the country’s Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Product. There are many nations in the world where informal sector is a significant part of the economy. It also plays a very significant role in the income generation, employment creation as well as production.

According to a data by the International Labor Organization, the informal sector formed a very large percentage of the economy in Madagascar. According to the data, in  Madagascar  97.3 percent of the population was involved in the informal economy. At the number two spot was the African nation of Zimbabwe where 94.5 percent of the population was working in unregulated and untaxed jobs. India occupied the third spot with 80.5 percent of the population in informal economy.

In nations where between 60 to 80 percent of the population was working in the informal sector were Tanzania, Peru, Cambodia, Liberia,  Guatemala, Myanmar, and a few others. Countries such as Ukraine,  Moldova, Uganda, Serbia, Turkey etc saw between 20 to 40 percent of their population employed in the informal sector.

At the bottom of the table were nations like the Russian Federation, Thailand,  Mongolia, Brunei, and Samoa, where less than 20 percent of the population was involved in the informal sector. However, Greece had the least number of people working in the informal sector. Here the percentage stood at 3.6.

Know more:

• Percentage of population employed in agriculture
• Female labor participation rates across countries

• Top 10 countries with highest employment
• Informal economy by country

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