International Journal of Development in Social Sciences and Humanities

The concept of an informal or unorganised sector began to receive world-wide attention in the early 1970s, when the International Labour Organisation initiated series efforts to identify and study the area through its World Employment Programme Missions in Kenya, Columbia, Sri Lanka and Philippines primarily underlined the development strategy based on economic growth in which employment was considered as the prime objective for development. The British Economist Keith Hart in 1971 coined the term informal sector. He made a detailed study of urban Ghana in which the study reported the new entrants, particularly rural migrants, to the labour market in the urban areas were forced to work in the informal sector partly owing to their lack of skill and experience needed for the jobs in the urban formal sector. Since then, the informal sector has been the subject of several studies and seminars covering various aspects like its size, employment potential, its relationship with the formal sector, technological levels etc.