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Ministry wants informal sector formalised to create jobs

Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Francis Kasaila has called for proper collaboration and coordination among stakeholders to help in formalising the informal sector to create jobs.

The minister said this on Friday when he opened a Formalisation of the Informal Sector Workshop in Lilongwe on Friday.

Kasaila: Most of employees experience poor conditions

He said the informal sector accounts for 89 percent of the working population; hence, the need to formalise it to ensure a good working environment for the employees.

Said Kasaila: “Most of the employees generally experience poor conditions of work, high illiteracy levels, inadequate skills, low income and with no social security benefits.”

He said employees in the informal sector face severe growth constraints such as lack of access to credit, markets as well as business development services.

He said because of this, most employees are subjected to unsafe working conditions and long hours of work as the informal sector has no structures for social dialogue.

This leads to workers having their rights violated by the employers.

Kasaila said employees in the informal sector economy have little knowledge of their fundamental principles of the rights to work, therefore do not have access to their social needs.

He cited specific policies, including the micro, small and medium enterprise development under the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, National Youth and Tevet policies under and the National Social Support Policy which is being implemented by the Department of Economic Planning and Development.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) informal sector specialist Annamarie Kiaga said the meeting was aimed at bringing together stakeholders to look at how best the informal sector could be formalised to ensure good working conditions for employees.

She said there was need for the informal sector economy to register and know law governing employment to enable its employees have access to good working conditions.

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