CHAPTER 1
The 5th challenge: informal employment
Informal employment is an officially unregistered but legally authorized working activity which assumes lack of legal enrolment or independent self provision with job. The concepts of informal economy and informal employment are accepted as basic specifications of economic activity which act out of the bound of the active legal norms without registration and fiscal record. Informal employment is a new phenomenon for the country’s labour market, although separate forms of unregistered employment existed during the pre-reform Soviet period. (missed translation) In the process of transition to market relations the scale, structure and character of informal employment has changed as well as its role in the economy. Lately, informal employment has reached considerable scale, so much so that it has factually become an independent segment of the labour market. It noticeably influences the state of employment, as well as the social and economic situation. The total employed in Tajikistan’s informal sector in 2008 reached 1,029,200 people (approximately 47.4% of the total number employed). Informal employment in Tajikistan is becoming more dominant in the younger population, since this age group is particularly ready to sacrifice some of their rights (e.g. pension rights, other social services of the state, etc.) in exchange for a more stable, and, in many cases, much higher compensation ensured offered by informal employment.
Informal employment is internally heterogeneous. For example, informal employment of students and pensioners, who comprise approximately one-sixths of total informal employment, can be seen as an inevitable and positive phenomenon. Informal employment in the form of business undertaking or self-employment has more positives than negatives. However, there is a greater risk of labour violations and there are almost no possibilities for professional self-fulfillment and human development. Expansion in informal employment leads to less social and tax revenues, which, as a result, lead to limited social investment. Most importantly, it does not stimulate pursuance of effective policy of income and payments in the country. The 6th challenge: ecology and employment Environment, economic development and poverty are tightly interrelated in Tajikistan. The greater part of the country’s population is exposed to adverse factors of environment, particularly, desertification, water pollution and natural disasters, particularly, droughts and floods. However, natural relief and climate are not the only causes: other causes include the negative practices associated with land tenure: cultivation on steep slopes, cutting of vegetation, excessive pasturing, inappropriate watering technologies, insufficient mitigating measures of development of transport and other infrastructure, mining, etc.; these all endanger preservation, operations, and further development of agriculture. Insufficient financing of measures outlined in strategic documents, plans and programmes in the field of environmental control is a traditional challenge of human development for the country; this has led to loss of land resources, which have the potential to promote employment.
Informal employment is a function of the demand for labour. Selected research carried out in the country has shown that informal employment was primarily concentrated in private micro-enterprises in the areas of trade, service and construction. These industries experience demand fluctuations and require a flexible workforce.
Although Tajikistan has relatively well-developed legislative frames of the main laws on environmental control and respective problems, execution of this legislation is slow. Activity falls behind recommendations of international conventions or agreements.
Despite many of its negative impacts, informal employment does reduce real unemployment rates and lessen tensions on the labour market. The social role of informal employment has been a reason of its continued vitality and development.
The State Ecological Programme for 1998-2008 acknowledges the importance of a healthy and clean environment for successful economic development, and notes the dependence of humanity’s survival on the vitality of the
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National Human Development Report 2008 -2009