The EU-funded MEDSTAT IV has held a regional workshop on statistics of informal work. The workshop, which took place in Paris last month, aimed to share and discuss conceptual frameworks relevant for statistics on informal work, sources, methods and indicators, as well as the use of statistics for measuring the impact of informal work the phenomenon on the systems of national accounts.

Informal work is an important reality worldwide, and concerns not only vulnerable groups, but a large portion of the working population. The measurement of informal employment and its economic impact is of high interest, but is hampered by varying definitions and data collection processes, as well as the cost of targeted statistical operations to collect data.

The workshop discussed these issues, as well as the lack of harmonisation in the production of statistics on informal work in the Mediterranean Partner countries. Among the main recommendations to emerge from the workshop were that partner countries should aim to extend surveys on the informal economy, based on best practices, as well as to increase the visibility and use of the available data.

The workshop took place in the framework of the Work Programme of the Euro-Mediterranean Working Group on Labour Market Statistics (EMWGLS).

The MEDSTAT IV project provides expertise and technical support to promote the harmonisation of statistics in line with EU and international standards in 6 domains: business register and business, trade and balance of payments, energy, labour market, migration and transport. It follows on the previous phase implemented over the period 2010-2013.

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