Informal employment in South Africa: Still missing pieces in the vulnerability puzzle

Abstract

The informal economy in South Africa offers an alternative and often long-term means of survival to thousands of people who cannot find formal employment. However, it is small relative to that in other developing countries and under-researched. The emergence of informal employment activities, such as day labouring, has made it imperative to reconceptualise the relationship between casualised employment and wider patterns of labour market restructuring. This article contextualises the need to study the vulnerabilities of informal workers in South Africa, both in the current literature and the general discourse, and to identify those issues that must head a refocused research agenda on the broader informal sector in South Africa. Prominent agenda items ought to include: the expanding role of local and foreign migrants; shifting patterns in the level of human capital attainment; why subjective well-being is so high among informal workers; varying spatial characteristics; and the different survival strategies of participants in informal employment activities such as day labouring, waste picking and car guarding. The article also stresses the need for more interdisciplinary microeconomic analyses set against a backdrop of institutional failure, which will help to address the possible diminishing intellectual returns evident in the area of informal sector research.

Key words: Informal economy; informal employment; informal sector; day labouring; waste picking; casualised employment