How street traders take the chance to earn living
Barriers to business keep sector relatively small in job-starved SA
Johannesburg is SA’s city of dreams to which people flock from across the country and the continent in the hope of scoring their big break. The grind starts early in the morning and, in places, a commute is like a drive through a market. On sale at traffic lights and on the pavements of busy streets are knock-off branded hats, beaded ornaments, technology chargers and cables and cold drinks. The informal sector has become a microcosm of the malls in SA’s cities and towns. In the central business district, all kinds of goods are available from street traders. The industry is valued at R750bn. According to Statistics SA, "informal employment identifies persons who are in precarious employment situations irrespective of whether or not the entity for which they work is in the formal or informal sector". IMF resident representative to SA Montfort Mlachila says that, compared with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the informal sector in SA is relatively small at 25% of GDP. In Nigeria, for ...
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