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Chuks Udo Okonta
Of the 90.91 million workers in the nation’s informal sector, just over 70,000 of them have embraced the Micro Pension Plan (MPP), leave 90.21 million out, Inspenonline can report.
Data obtained from the National Pension Commission (PenCom) revealed that as at August 2021, informal sector subscribers to the micro pension plan was 70,000 which is expected to have increased since them.
This gap would have moved PenCom to mandate PFAs to commenced the submission of yearly media campaign plan, which is aimed to quickly get the mass of informal sector workers in the pension plan.
According to World Bank report, the population of Nigeria is put at about 206 million and the employment rate standing at 66.70%, which covers both formal and informal sectors. This, amounted to about 137.40 million, of which 80.4 per cent of them, amounting to 90.91 million, are in the informal sector.
The Bank, stated in a new report titled ‘Long shadow of informality, challenges and policies’, that the informal economy accounted for one third of the national GDP in advanced economy and more than two thirds of employment in a developing and emerging economies.
The World Bank Group study found that a strikingly large percentage of workers and firms operated outside the line of sight of governments in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) – a challenge that is likely to hold back the recovery in these economies unless governments adopted a comprehensive set of policies to address the drawbacks of the informal sector.
The report stated that 80.4 per cent of Nigeria employments were in the informal sector, 10 per cent in the formal sector and 9.6 per cent in households. A total of 78.8 per cent of men were in the informal sector; 12.9 per cent of men were in the formal sector and 8.3 per cent in households.
The report said 82.1 per cent women in Nigeria were in the informal sector; 6.9 per cent in the formal sector while 11 per cent were in households.
The informal sector includes casual day labourers, domestic workers, industrial outworkers, undeclared workers, and part-time or temporary workers without secure contracts, worker benefits or social protection.
