Street vendors

The street vendors are commonly found in Jakarta and other cities in developing countries. They are informal sector and an important part of the economy of the city. The informal sector in Indonesia in 2004 accounted for 64 per cent of the total employment. The proportion of informal sector in urban areas was even higher during the economic crisis in the late 1990s when the closure of many manufacturing and service corporations pushed the newly unemployed into informal sector.

Increasing informal labor force is a distinctive characteristic of Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia since sector formal can not accommodate the large number of labor force. The informal sector is not only associated with the poor people but also with the middle-class people. Many middle-class people in urban areas in Jakarta greatly benefit from economic activities carried out outside the formal sectors. [more at indonesia urban studies]