BusinessDay reports that Statistics SA has put the number of people employed in the informal economy at 4-million after definitions of formal and informal employment underwent “significant revisions” in the calculation of the third quarter jobless rate.

The agency indicated on Tuesday that based on the revisions “estimates on informality cannot be compared with the previous estimates”. But, while the revisions to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey strengthened how certain aspects of the labour market were captured, they did not affect the measurement or definition of employment and unemployment. Headline unemployment figures thus remained comparable and consistent with previous quarter. SA’s informal economy is said to be worth R900bn annually. About 1.3-million people employed in the informal sector are women.

The size of SA’s informal economy has been a hot topic after former Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie said the sector was undercounted and actually accounted for a larger chunk of jobs. Capitec has put the size of the informal economy at 6-million businesses. Stats SA now identifies informal employment as people who are in “precarious employment situations, irrespective of whether or not the entity for which they work is in the formal or informal sector”.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessDay (subscriber access only)

Get other news reports at the SA LabourNews home page