Informal employment in Latin America by country 2021

Among the countries with available information, Bolivia had the highest share of employment informality, amounting to almost 85 percent of the total employed population in 2019. This means that more than three out of every four workers in Bolivia were informally employed in that year. Uruguay was one of the countries with the lowest share of informal employment in the region, with around 21.4 percent of the employed population being informally employed.

Informal employment as percentage of total employment in selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as of 2021

Characteristic	2021	2020	2019	2017
Panama	55.7%	-	-	-
Peru	-	70.1%	-	-
El Salvador	-	68.5%	-	-
Mexico	-	55.7%	-	-
Dominican Republic	-	54.5%	-	-
Argentina	-	46.4%	-	-
Brazil	-	46.2%	-	-
Costa Rica	-	36.6%	-	-
Chile	-	25.3%	-	-
Uruguay	-	21.4%	-	-
Bolivia	-	-	84.9%	-
Guatemala	-	-	79%	-
Paraguay	-	-	68.9%	-
Ecuador	-	-	63.5%	-
Colombia	-	-	62.1%	-
Guyana	-	-	56.5%	-
Honduras	-	-	-	82.6%

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Release date

2021

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Region

LAC

Survey time period

2021 or latest year available*

Supplementary notes

* This graph only includes countries with available data from 2017 onwards.
According to the source's definition: "Employment in the informal sector refers all persons who, during a given reference period, were employed in at least one informal sector enterprise, irrespective of their status in employment and whether it was their main or a secondary job. An informal sector enterprise is (1) an unincorporated enterprise and (2) a market enterprise (i.e., it sells at least some of the goods or services it produces), and (3) meets at least one of the following criteria: (i) the enterprise is not registered, (ii) the employees of the enterprise are not registered, or (iii) the number of persons engaged on a continuous basis is below a threshold determined by the country."

The release date given is the last update date provided by the source.

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