About 40,000 people or 10.5 percent of Cabo Verde’s working age population are employed in the informal sector of the economy, 85 percent of them permanently, indicates a report on the year 2015 issued by the Bank of Cabo Verde.

In the urban environment, informal activities were mainly carried out by women with an average age of 40 years and an educational level corresponding to the six years of mandatory education.

The central bank of Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) also informs in the report that the number of non-agricultural informal production units increased by 38 percent from 2010 to 2015, accompanied by a 27.5 percent rise in the number of people working in the sector.

The BCV data show that 40 percent of informal production units were created after 2009, with corresponding increases in the rate of self-employment (from 82.9 percent to 86.5 percent) and unsalaried workers (from 3.2 percent to 6.8 percent) in the informal economy.

The island country’s central bank also referred to a survey by the National Statistics Institute conducted between late June and the first half of September 2015, showing that the gross added value of informal activities accounted for 12 percent of Cabo Verde’s gross domestic product. (Macauhub/CV)