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Venezuela Informal Sector
An estimated 2.3 million persons, or 38 percent of all
workers, operated outside the formal economy in 1988.
Although
estimates varied, the informal sector accounted for
between 32
and 40 percent of the labor force throughout the 1980s.
This
sector included nonprofessional self-employed workers,
businesses
employing five or fewer persons, and domestic workers.
So-called
informales drove taxis, offered door-to-door
mechanical
services, cleaned homes, sold clothing on downtown
streets, and
worked as day laborers. Youth, women, and Colombian
indocumeutados (undocumented or illegal aliens)
apparently
constituted a disproportionate share of the informal
sector.
According to some analysts, the country's large
underground
economy stemmed from the government's excessive regulation
of the
formal economy and the private sector's inability to
provide
sufficient jobs for the country's burgeoning urban
populace.
Data as of December 1990
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