INCOMES SURVEY OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR OF THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY 2023

The mandate of the Commission requires among other things, to provide the Federal Government continuously with information on the movement of all forms of incomes, and propose guidelines relating to profits, dividends and all incomes other than wages. To this end a study of the incomes of the informal sector of the Nigerian economy is necessary. The importance of the informal sector activities in an economy cannot be overemphasised because it creates a wide range of jobs and economic activities which cover all spheres of economic activities. The International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC)was adopted in the categorisation of the economic activities,the adoption was modified to accommodate the presence and peculiar economic activities in the country, for this study the economic activities were classified into seven (7) categories which are: Agricultural, Manufacturing, Gas and Water Supply, Building and Construction, Wholesale, Retail Trade and Restaurant, Transport, Storage and Communication and Community, Social and Personal Services.

What is the Informal Sector?

Informal Sector are the enterprises that characterised by free entry, free exit, perfect market knowledge and market forces determination without regulations, as is the case of a perfect competitive market. They are businesses which are also characterized by no formal organization structure, low and irregular earnings, business insecurity, lack of social welfare such as pension for both employer and employee and lack of record keeping. In Nigeria,the informal sector is classified as those business activities which are not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The survey exercise was designed into two phases which include:

1. Training of Field officers: the department conducted training for the field officers on 23 November2023 at the Commission’s conference room

Distribution of survey instruments: field officers were deployed to eight (8) states which comprise one (1) state in each geo-political zoneincluding Lagos and Abuja.The exercise was carried out between 27^th November to 1^st December 2023