President Cyril Ramaphosa aims to set the country on a new path of growth, employment and transformation. Action plans for employment creation are to be deliberated at a jobs summit. It is important to address the informal sector in such initiatives, given the key role it plays in providing paid employment and reducing poverty. In our book, our research shows unambiguously that the informal sector is an important source of employment (and of paid employment) and actually shows a growing propensity to employ. Regrettably, for many decades the sector has been forgotten and marginalised by economic analysis and policy. Many policy makers appear to lump it with formal SMMEs (small, medium and micro-sized enterprises). However, such an approach risks missing key elements of the "forgotten" world of informal enterprises — their potential, the constraints they face, their particular vulnera-bility, and the policy support they need to be viable. While SA’s informal sector is small compared ...
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