The labor market, informality and street vendors in Sao Paulo

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to characterize and analyze the evolution in the numbers and profiles of persons working as street vendors in the city of São Paulo during the 2000s. The empirical base is composed of series from the Employment and Unemployment Survey (Pesquisa de Emprego e Desemprego) for the São Paulo Metropolitan Region. The data revealed that there were 100,000 vendors working on the streets of São Paulo in 2009, far fewer than the 133,000 counted in 2004. This significant reduction can be attributed to the improvement of the metropolitan labor market as of 2004, characterized by a fall in unemployment. Despite the heterogeneity of street vendors, a predominant profile of these workers could be identified: they are generally male, white, of mature age, with low levels of education, heads of poor households and long-time residents of the city.