Informality has been reduced in Colombia, says Dane

The study compares the situation of informality and social security in Colombia, between the mobile quarter from December to February 2021, with that of 2022. The study looked at 23 cities and metropolitan areas, which did not include San Andrés, nor the capital cities of the Amazon or Orinoquia region.

The analysis breaks all cities into two, in the balance of total informality, in 13 cities and metropolitan areas there is a reduction of 3.9 per cent, meaning that the proportion of informal workers is 43.3 per cent. In addition, for the total of 23 cities and metropolitan areas, occupancy is 44.6 per cent, which means that there was a reduction of 3.7 per cent.

Of the 23 cities and metropolitan areas, Sincelejo is the city with the highest proportion of informality in the country, 65.5%, followed by Cucuta and its metropolitan area with 65%, Riohacha 63.7% and Florence with 62.6%. In contrast, Bogotá is the city with the lowest proportion, 33.1%, Manizales and its metropolitan area is the penultimate in the ranking with 39%, while Medellín and its metropolitan area have 40.5%.

Another not minor figure is gender differentiation, the proportion of men employed in the mobile quarter from December to February 2021 was 48%; for the same period, this year, the male population had an employment rate of 43.7%, which means a reduction of 4.3%. The analysis puts women in a lower proportion, last year the figure was 46.2%; whereas for the current quarter an employment rate of 42.7% was found, this being a reduction of 3.5%.

With regard to social security, 93.3% of those reported employed in 13 cities and metropolitan areas said they were affiliated with health, while, in pension matters, 57.6% are contributors. This means that there was a 2% increase in health affiliations, while in pension contributions the increase was 1.9%.

Also, in 13 cities and metropolitan areas there was a 3.7% increase in the number of workers contributing to the contributory or special scheme, from 60.2% in 2021 to 63.9%. In addition, last year there were 7.6 per cent of beneficiaries of the scheme, this increased to 8.1 per cent, which shows a growth of 0.5 per cent. It should be noted that 21.1 per cent of employed persons belonging to the subsidized regime are registered.

The National Administrative Department of Statistics explained that it considers employed those people who during the period referred to were working at least one hour a week which was paid, those who, although they did not work in the reference week, had a job and/or, unpaid family workers who, although they did not work in the reference week. worked in the reference week for at least 1 hour.

As informal employees, DANE considered private employees and/or workers working in enterprises with no more than 5 employees; unpaid family workers in enterprises under the same conditions as described above; domestic workers; day laborers or laborers and non-professional self-employed workers who do not have more than 5 employees. Among the excluded workers are workers or government employees.

According to Portfolio, there are 9.9 million workers who live or are located in “urban domains”, of which 4.2 million are informal.

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