Urban labour in informal sector of Andhra Pradesh

The informal sector constitutes a significant proportion of the total output of developing nations of the world. The figures reported by the ILO state that 48 per cent of non-agricultural employment in North Africa, 51 per cent in Latin America, 65 per cent in Asia and 72 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa is represented by the informal sector. The urban informalsector plays a crucial role in providing sources of livelihood particularly to the rural migrants and low income households residing in urban slums. The informal sector plays an important role both in terms of its capacity to sustain a large proportion of rural / urban population by generating employment opportunities and producing goods and services for a significant segment of the population. The substantial increase in the volume of person days of employment, percentage of subsidiary and casual labours in the early nineties, after the formal launching of the programmes of structural adjustment, has given a boost to informal sector studies since much of this incremental employment has been generated within this sector. The objectives are to analyse the socio-economic conditions of urban labour in informal sector; and to analyse the employment and wages pattern in urban labour in informal sector in the study area. The present study used both primary data and secondary data for the analysis according to the objectives set in the study. The multi-stage random sampling method will be adopted for present research study. Andhra Pradesh has purposively selected for the study. Therefore the sample size is 675. These respondents were interviewed with a pre-designed and well-structured questionnaire prepared to collect the primary data. A well-structured schedule was canvassed among the labourers respondents and interview method was adopted to record their responses relating to the socio-economic conditions of labourers, their income, employment, unemployment and wages of labourers in informal sector. The above analysis that the hours of work had influence on wage fixation. Further, it is seen street vendors were paid less than others in the study area. The problems of labours in informal sector such as insecurity of job, irregularity in payments, low wage rate, long hours of work, poverty and indebtedness, occupational hazards and health conditions, absence of social security measures, insecurity arising out of illness, loss of income arising out of accident, lack of old age security, lack of employer-employees relationship and wage discrimination are the major issues being faced by the labours in informal sector in Andhra Pradesh. These problems can be addressed by applied suggested measures such as effective implementation of all labour laws to the labours in informal sector in the study area.