Two billion informal workers struggling with Covid-19

A street vendor in Istanbul, Turkey on September 4, 2020. REUTERS / Murad Sezer

By: Jean-Pierre Boris Follow

13 min

If developed countries have been able to seek to protect employees sidelined by the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, this has not been the case in developing countries.

Publicity

For lack of means but also because many workers in these countries escape any census, they are informal workers.

It was learned this week that Africa's second-largest economy, South Africa's, contracted 51% in the second quarter of this year.

In this country, as throughout the African continent, those who are suffering the hardest from this economic crisis are those called the informal, who belong to the informal economy, the one that is also said to be underground and which nevertheless manifests itself. in broad daylight in most developing countries.

According to the International Labor Office in Geneva, two billion human beings today work in this informal sector.

Who exactly are they?

Is their standard of living seriously affected by the current pandemic?

Are States helping them?

What is the contribution of these informal people to general wealth?

These are some of the questions addressed by Jean-Pierre Boris to the guests who accepted RFI's invitation.

is research director at CNRS, professor of economics and member of the Aix-Marseille school of economics.

Christophe Jalil Nordman

is a labor and development economist, director of research at IRD, the Institute for Research for Development.

Within IRD, he is a permanent member of Dial at Paris Dauphine University.

Reports: 

- In Madagascar, the coronavirus pandemic has had a dramatic impact on a very fragile economy.

In the Big Island, the informal sector, which occupies nearly 75% of the workforce, has not escaped the rule.

In this country where nearly 80% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day, according to the World Bank, what are the strategies put in place to escape the precariousness induced by the measures of confinement and social distancing?

It is an Eco report from here Eco by the way signed

in Antananarivo.

- Another example of informality: workers who work every day for the same boss but do not have an employment contract and therefore no social security.

In southern India, in the state of Karnataka, the capital of which, Bangalore, nicknamed the “Indian Silicon Valley” for its many digital companies, has experienced strong growth since the turn of the century.

Its population has doubled and there are now 12 million inhabitants.

One of the manifestations of this demographic growth is the boom in the construction sector, whose workers have been hit hard by the cessation of activities due to Covid-19.

In Bangalore, India, a report by

. 

- These are people who have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Mexico, informal workers, who represent more than half of the workforce, face a double crisis.

This sector of the population has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which caused 630,000 cases and 68,000 deaths on September 7, but also by the unprecedented economic crisis which is already being felt in the country.

In Mexico, it's a report by

.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Employment and Work

• South Africa

• Economic crisis