skillsyd

INTERNATIONAL TRAINING CENTREOF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION

OCCASIONAL PAPERS

SKILLS AND WORK IN

THE INFORMAL SECTOR

evidence from

Yaoundé, Cameroon

by Fred FLUITMAN and

Joseph Jean Marie MOMO

TURIN, ITALY, DECEMBER 2001

Copyright © International Training Centre of the ILO 2002

This publication enjoys copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal Copyright Convention. Applications for authorization to reproduce,

translate or adapt part or all of its contents should be addressed to the International Training Centre of the ILO. The Centre welcomes such

applications. Nevertheless, short excerpts may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated.

SKILLS AND WORK IN THE INFORMAL SECTOR: Evidence from Yaoundé, Cameroon

by Fred Fluitman and Joseph Jean Marie Momo

First edition 2002

The designations employed in publications of the International Training Centre of the ILO, which are in conformity with United Nations

practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Centre concern-

ing i.a. the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers. The responsibil-

ity for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with their authors, and publication does not

constitute an endorsement by the Centre of the opinions expressed in them.

Publications of the Centre, as well as a catalogue or list of new publications, can be obtained from the following address:

Publications, International Training Centre of the ILO, Viale Maestri del Lavoro, 10 - 10127 Turin, Italy Telephone: +39 - 011 - 6936.693

Fax: +39 - 011 - 6936.352 E-mail: [email protected]

Acknowledgements

This paper, presenting the results of interviews with selected micro-entrepreneurs con-

ducted in December 2000, is, in a way, an outcome of work done in West Africa, notably in

Togo, by various people, more than ten years ago1. That is to say, the research idea underlying

the effort, and the manner in which the fieldwork was approached and conducted, this time in

Yaoundé, Cameroon, have borrowed heavily from that experience.

Work of the sort is, naturally, a team effort, with each of various roles being critical in

yielding a solid product. Thus, without the willingness of hundreds of Yaoundé entrepre-

neurs to share their time and answer the various questions posed to them, the project would

surely have failed to come to fruition. Their enthusiastic collaboration is fondly remem-

bered and applauded. The fieldwork was planned and managed by Joseph Jean Marie

Momo, Programme Officer at the ILO’s Multi-disciplinary Team for Central Africa

(EMAC) in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Mr. Momo was also responsible for sampling and all as-

pects of data processing. The continued support of EMAC director Françoise Achio is

gratefully acknowledged. Fred Fluitman, Manager of the Employment and Skills Develop-

ment Programme, at the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organi-

zation (ILO), in Turin, Italy, initiated and directed the project. He is the author of the present

report.

Nicolas Serrière and Benedetta Jaretti, both on the staff of ILO’s Turin Centre, pro-

vided a considerable amount of research assistance, particularly in handling survey data for

final analysis and inclusion in the report. Mr. Serrière also assisted in preparing tables and

graphs, and in the editing of this report.

Work on the ground in Yaoundé, was conceived, in part, as an “on-the-job” learning

exercise. The interviews were conducted, after two days of intensive training, by 15 inter-

viewers and two controllers, all final year students of the Yaoundé-based Institut

Sous-régional de Statistique et Economie Appliquée (ISSEA). Their prior experience and

their seriousness have certainly contributed to the quality of the data obtained. Mr. Robert

Ngonthe, Chief of the Department of Studies and Applied Research at ISSEA, ably organ-

ised their involvement and also acted as a survey supervisor.

The training of the interviewers benefited from a financial contribution by the Italian

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other resources for the project were available, inter alia, from the

budget of a larger research project on vocational education and training in Sub-Saharan Africa,

directed and financed by the World Bank, and implemented by the ILO Turin Centre.

iii

SKILLS AND WORK IN THE INFORMAL SECTOR

1 See: Fluitman, Fred, and Xavier Oudin, Skill Acquisition and Work in Micro-enterprises: Evidence from Lomé,Togo, International Labour Office, Vocational Training Branch, Geneva, December 1991. The Lomé resultswere integrated into: Birks, Steve, Fred Fluitman, Xavier Oudin and Clive Sinclair, Skills Acquisition inMicro-enterprises: Evidence from West Africa , A joint study of the World Bank, the ILO, and the DevelopmentCentre of the OECD, Development Centre Documents, OECD, Paris, 1994 (also published in French).

Executive Summary

The present study of skills and work in Yaoundé, Cameroon, is mainly based on inter-

views with a stratified sample of almost 700 micro-entrepreneurs, men and women, in-

volved in one of twelve common trades, exercised in what is known, including in national

statistics, as the informal sector of the economy. The main objective of the effort was to

learn from what these entrepreneurs had to say about themselves and their enterprises, and

in particular about their distinct career paths and the skills they had acquired along the way.

It is believed that insights thus obtained may help in the design and implementation of mea-

sures intended to improve the functioning of both training systems and micro-enterprises,

and consequently enhance their contribution to meeting national economic and social ob-

jectives.

While the results of the survey are not representative for the informal sector as a

whole, they concern a broad cross section of micro-enterprises other than the shops of re-

tailers. Undertaking the survey, with respondents selected on the basis of area sampling,

confirmed that Yaoundé’s informal sector is massive, and not necessarily ailing through-

out. Survey findings further showed, unambiguously, that enterprises of the informal sector

variety, while surely having things in common, are also characterised by great diversity.

The entrepreneurs responding in the survey proved to be young, as is the country’s

population as a whole. However, hardly any teenagers were found among the sample. Re-

spondents were, on average, a few years older than those employed by them in various ca-

pacities, but they did not appear to employ children (which doesn’t mean, of course, that

child labour does not exist in Yaoundé). Three out of four respondents were not born in

Yaoundé, and half the sample had grown up in a family of farmers. Gender-based differ-

ences among entrepreneurs were noteworthy, but not surprising in the sense of unexpected.

The survey brought out clear evidence of occupational segmentation, based on gender, as

well as on the basis of other, no doubt related variables such as education level, family

background and age.

As concerns education, almost all of the sample entrepreneurs had completed pri-

mary school, and many had obtained, in addition, one or another type of secondary school

diploma. On average, respondents were clearly better educated than the population as a

whole, and than their co-workers. The latter finding is interesting, as other, similar surveys

had shown that younger workers, notably apprentices were often better educated than their,

older, bosses, presumably because of progress made over the years in education provision.

A surprisingly large proportion of entrepreneurs (45 per cent) also had undergone a period

of pre-employment vocational training. More often than not, such training was of relatively

v


long duration, and provided for a fee, in private rather than in government-sponsored train-

ing institutions. Most entrepreneurs, men and women, had, furthermore, been apprentices,

normally in the trade they were now practising, and usually for a period of two to three

years. Apprenticeship was uncommon only in the restaurant trade. Asked to state their most

useful education or training experience, apprenticeship came out best in six of the twelve

trades, and in second place in three others.

All enterprises in the sample had a fixed location, except those involved in construc-

tion activities. Many were somehow registered and likely to pay some form of tax. Only

one in six of the respondents were members of an association of artisans or similar group-

ing.

Three out of four sample enterprises had been created by their current operators, who

had in most cases done so with their own savings. More than half of the enterprise had ex-

isted more than two years and twenty per cent had existed nine years or more. The average

(mean) age of enterprises was 5.2 years. In one of four sample enterprises the entrepreneur

was working alone. Average enterprise size in terms of employment was 3.3, including the

entrepreneur. Less than three per cent of the enterprises employed more than ten workers

and none more than twenty. Thirty five per cent of all those working in the sample enter-

prises were apprentices; twenty-one per cent were wage-workers, three quarters of them

permanent employees.

Three out of four enterprises took in less than US$4002 per month, and half of the en-

terprises less than US$200. A major reason for differences in income among activities lies

in the fact that costs of inputs vary widely. An estimate of net income shows that, at the low

end of the scale, half of the enterprises of leatherworkers, who were, incidentally, the least

educated among the sample entrepreneurs, were left with less than US$43 per month after

all inputs had been paid for. In the middle of the net income range were women’s dressmak-

ers, cyber cafés and restaurants. Garages were left, on average, with US$170 per month

(mean) but half of them made US$88 or less.

Having defined as a relatively successful enterprise one that, within a given activity,

had done well both in terms of gross income and productivity, defined as gross income per

worker, a high performance group was identified and compared with a group of equal size,

consisting of relatively less successful firms. It could thus be noted that enterprises in the

former category were more likely to have existed longer, and to be run by entrepreneurs

who were somewhat older. The low performers among the entrepreneurs were somewhat

more likely than others to have been born in Yaoundé, and to have grown up in a family of

wage-workers rather than one of artisans or traders. Among the high performers, a rela-

tively high share of those who had come to Yaoundé to find work, rather than, for example,

in order to get an education, was noteworthy. As concerns education and training, more suc-

cessful entrepreneurs appeared to have gone somewhat further in school, they were more

likely to have had some form of pre-employment vocational training, and with 61 per cent,

as compared to 64 per cent for the low performers, they were only slightly less likely to

have been traditional apprentices.

vi

ITC ILO OCCASIONAL PAPER

2 The exchange rate (rounded) at the time of the survey was Fcfa 100 = 0.13 US$, or 1 US$ = 770 Fcfa.

When entrepreneurs who had been in business for at least a year were asked how they

were doing, compared to previous years, only one in four respondents said that business

was better than before. Some 46 per cent said that business was down; 26 per cent said that

is was about the same; and four per cent didn’t know.

By way of conclusion, it seems fair to say that Yaoundé’s informal sector consists of

lots of more or less viable micro-enterprises, most of them yielding only modest incomes to

their operators. Most of these operators are neither uneducated nor among the poorest of the

poor. Their productivity is often low both as a result of specific skill deficiencies and a lack

of customers. They are not in large numbers dissatisfied and thinking of doing something

else, no doubt because alternatives are limited. Finally, it appears important to reiterate that

a large extent of heterogeneity exists among micro-entrepreneurs. This should render any

generalisation suspect and be evident in interventions aimed at them.

vii


Contents Page

Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................iii

Executive Summary......................................................................................................................v

Contents Page ..............................................................................................................................ix

Table of Tables....................................................................................................................................x

Table of Charts....................................................................................................................................x

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................1

Background.........................................................................................................................................1

Objectives and methodology ..............................................................................................................2

Chapter 1: Context .......................................................................................................................5

The country and the economy ............................................................................................................5

The labour market...............................................................................................................................6

Working in Yaoundé ...........................................................................................................................6

Education and training........................................................................................................................8

Chapter 2: Informal Sector Entrepreneurs ...............................................................................9

Age of the entrepreneurs...................................................................................................................10

Male and Female Entrepreneurs .......................................................................................................10

Family background and reasons for being in Yaoundé.....................................................................12

Education ..........................................................................................................................................13

Vocational Training...........................................................................................................................15

Apprenticeship..................................................................................................................................16

Most useful learning experience.......................................................................................................17

Career paths ......................................................................................................................................18

Skills needed and skills acquired......................................................................................................19

Interest in further training.................................................................................................................22

Chapter 3: Informal Sector Enterprises...................................................................................25

Creation and age of the enterprise ....................................................................................................25

Size of the enterprise and worker characteristics .............................................................................27

Working hours ..................................................................................................................................29

Technology and equipment...............................................................................................................30

Performance of the enterprise...........................................................................................................31

Problems and perspectives................................................................................................................36

Chapter 4: Apprenticeship in the Enterprise...........................................................................39

Concluding remarks ...................................................................................................................45

Annex: Methodology and organisation of work .....................................................................47

ix


Table of Tables

Table 1. Cameroon’s employed population, by sex, formal and informal sector, 1996................................6

Table 2. Number of sample entrepreneurs, by activity and sex...............................................................9

Table 3. Differences between male and female entrepreneurs in selected activities.............................11

Table 4. Entrepreneurs having been apprentices, as a percentage of all, by activity, and byaverage duration of the apprenticeship in months ...................................................................16

Table 5. Most useful education or training experience, by activity, percentage of sampleentrepreneurs (answer “other” not included)...........................................................................18

Table 6. Employment in sample enterprises, by activity, by employment status, as apercentage of total employed including the owner/entrepreneur ............................................28

Table 7. Percentage of entrepreneurs using certain tools and equipment, by activity .............................30

Table 8. Average gross and net monthly revenues (corrected) as well as gross revenuesper worker, thousands of FCFA, mean and median.................................................................34

Table 9. Performance matrix: number of sample enterprises grouped in quintilesof gross revenue and productivity levels .................................................................................35

Table 10. Comparing what are designated relatively high performance (HPE) and relatively lowperformance (LPE) sample enterprises in each of the twelve sample activities, selectedvariables, percentages (unless otherwise stated) .....................................................................36

Table 11. First or second most pressing problem in operating the enterprise, by activity,percentage of all enterprises in the activity .............................................................................37

Table 12. Percentage of entrepreneurs who would like to have gone further in their studies, whowould like their child to be an apprentice, who would like their child to learn their trade,and who think that more education leads guarantees bigger earnings, by activity..................38

Table 13. Percentage of entrepreneurs who currently have, who had in the past, andwho never had apprentices, number of apprentices and average number ofapprentices in enterprises currently with apprentices, by activity...........................................39

Table 14. Comparing education levels of sample entrepreneurs and their apprentices,by activity, percentages of those having primary school completed or less(Prim), and secondary school completed or more (Bac) .........................................................41

Table 15. Share of women’s dressmakers with apprentices who charge apprenticeshipfees, or not, by whether they conclude apprenticeship contracts, or not....................................42

Table of Charts

Chart 1. Family background of entrepreneurs, by activity, in percentages ...........................................12

Chart 2. Reasons for being in Yaoundé, by activity, percentages..........................................................13

Chart 3. Educational attainment of sample entrepreneurs.....................................................................14

Chart 4. Entrepreneurs’ career paths, relative duration per phase.........................................................19

Chart 5. Skills gap: Apply for and manage credit .................................................................................21

Chart 6. Skills gap: Marketing ..............................................................................................................21

Chart 7. Skills gap: Book keeping.........................................................................................................22

Chart 8. Percentage of sample enterprises by age of enterprise ............................................................26

Chart 9. Number of persons, including the entrepreneur, having worked in the enterprise duringthe preceding week, percentages of all enterprises in the sample ...........................................27

Chart 10. Median of net and gross revenues, per activity, in '000 Fcfa...................................................32

Chart 11. Gross revenue ceilings, per quartile and per activity...............................................................33

x


Introduction

Background

In observing African labour markets3, or those of other developing countries, for ex-

ample with a view to elaborating measures that would improve employment opportunities

and incomes of a rapidly growing labour force, it is hard to ignore a sort of dualism in the

way people go about their economic activities. It often appears as if people, somehow, oper-

ate on the one, or the other side of a virtual fence. While pertinent statistics may be scarce,

or otherwise of limited use in proving, or illustrating the point, one need only walk the bus-

tling commercial areas of African cities, or the mini-markets of rural villages, to discover

what is now commonly called the informal sector. Neither a marginal, nor a transient phe-

nomenon, it is essentially that part of the economy where most people, including those well

educated, have turned to, once they found that there were no employers demanding their la-

bour, and that it made little sense to keep looking for non existing wage-employment. It is

the part of the economy that is largely made up of unincorporated, household-based, micro-

and small enterprises that are unlikely to “go by the book” in the manner of their formal sec-

tor counterparts. It is where most workers are self-employed, or unpaid family helpers, or

apprentices, involved, with more or less success, in a wide range of more or less productive

activities, including retail trade, of course, but also manufacturing and repair services.

Leaving aside the West African women who, with a mixture of respect and envy, are some-

times referred to as Nana Benz4, it is where most people end up poor.

The informal sector in Africa is large and growing. It was always large, no doubt, but

its sponge role has been accentuated by the fact that, in most countries, the emerging formal

sector of the economy has all but ceased to hire employees, in the wake of economic reces-

sion, structural adjustment, and a shrinking public sector. Indeed, formal sector wage em-

ployment has often declined both in relative and in absolute terms. In most African

countries, including Cameroon, such employment currently represents a mere ten per cent,

or less, of the labour force. Since, in the same countries, the labour force is typically in-

creasing by three per cent per year, even a vigorous restart of the formal sector will not, for

many years to come, result in the absorption of more than a trickle of new labour force en-

trants.

1


3 See e.g. Fluitman, Fred, Working, but not well: notes on the nature and extent of employment problems inSub-Saharan Africa, International Training Centre of the ILO, Occasional Papers, Turin, October, 2001.

4 The expression is widely known in the region and refers to women (“nana” is a French colloquial) who have doneso well in their informal business, notably trading textile, that they can afford to drive a luxury automobile.

A good reason to highlight a formal/informal dichotomy exists in the fact that

policymakers in many countries have tended not to know, or to ignore, that up to ninety per

cent of a population would end up at the “wrong side of the fence”. Others have tried, usu-

ally without success, to frustrate the phenomenon, or to oppose it more forcefully, such as

by sending in bulldozers. Increasingly, however, there is an interest in policy circles, in be-

ing more constructive and think in terms of measures that would improve conditions for

those who work in the informal sector. And it is widely believed that innovative education

and training policies should be part of such measures. Indeed, there is new evidence from

around the continent of innovative and effective approaches to training for work in the in-

formal sector5.

Objectives and methodology

It is against this background that it should be of interest, among other things, to ques-

tion both the relevance of the education and training systems in place, and their effective-

ness in preparing people for the world of work. Are current mechanisms of skills

development in African countries, government-sponsored or not, sufficiently geared to

helping people earn a decent income, that is, in the informal sector? Do governments really

have a role to play in this regard; what, if so, is that role, and are governments actually play-

ing it? Who are these informal sector operators anyway? Are they mostly men, and illiter-

ate? And what are the skills they have, as compared to the skills they would need? Where, if

governments failed to deliver, did they get the skills they have? Do informal sector entre-

preneurs consciously train those who work in their enterprises? What is the state of tradi-

tional apprenticeship in different trades?

Answering these and other such questions, should best be done along different tracks,

including the process of primary data gathering. The main objective of the present study of

skills and work in Yaoundé, is, therefore, to draw conclusions, as warranted, from what se-

lected informal sector entrepreneurs say about themselves and their enterprises, and in par-

ticular about their distinct career paths and the skills they have acquired along the way.

Ultimately this may help in the design and implementation of measures intended to im-

prove the functioning of both training systems and micro-enterprises, and consequently en-

hance their contribution to meeting national economic and social objectives.

The present study might be considered as a “reverse tracer study”, that is, a relatively

common type of survey used to verify the relevance and effectiveness of education and

training systems by asking people at work about their background and careers. In fact, its

aims and methodology are practically the same as those of an earlier study, undertaken in a

few West African countries, in 1989. More precisely, the present study follows closely the

approach taken in a 1989 survey of micro-enterprises in Lomé, Togo6. Besides resulting in

2


5 See e.g. Haan, Hans C., Training for Work in the Informal Sector: new evidence from Eastern and SouthernAfrica, International Training Centre of the ILO, Occasional Papers, Turin, November 2001.

6 Fluitman, Fred, and Xavier Oudin, Skill Acquisition and Work in Micro-enterprises: Evidence from Lomé, Togo ,International Labour Office, Vocational Training Branch, Geneva, December 1991. The Lomé results wereintegrated into: Birks, Steve, Fred Fluitman, Xavier Oudin and Clive Sinclair, Skills Acquisition inMicro-enterprises: Evidence from West Africa , A joint study of the World Bank, the ILO, and the DevelopmentCentre of the OECD, Development Centre Documents, OECD, Paris, 1994 (also published in French).

various savings, it was hoped that this should allow one, as a by-product, to validate the ear-

lier findings, for an other place, at a later time, that is, Yaoundé in the year 2000.

In order to meet the survey’s main aim, a stratified sample was drawn so as to arrive at

a sufficiently large number of responses for each of a significant number of relatively com-

mon, but distinct economic activities, carried out by women and men, and believed to re-

quire a certain degree of technical and managerial skills. The sample therefore, purposely,

included a variety of artisan trades and technical services, and excluded wholesale or retail

trading activities, which are, no doubt, numerically more important among informal sector

enterprises. The size of the enterprise was not decided on in advance as a selection yard-

stick, since it was believed, and borne out by subsequent experience, that relatively few es-

tablishments would have more than five workers, including the entrepreneur. Additional

details about the survey methodology may be found in Annex 1.

It is important to underline that, while the sum of the selected activities represents an

important segment of the local economy, survey results should only be considered repre-

sentative by activity. In other words, the sample as a whole does not represent any larger

population, such as “the artisans of Yaoundé”, and far less “the informal sector” in that city.

Survey results for all respondents taken together, do provide, however, a reference point in

situating results for individual sample trades. Indeed, in presenting the results of the survey,

the emphasis will be on differences among and within the sample activities.

This paper presents, to begin with, and briefly, because pertinent data are utterly

scarce, information about the economic and social context within which people in Yaoundé

work and live. A few remarks are added about Cameroon’s education and training system.

The main body of the text, will then, in some detail, present survey results for entrepreneurs

and their enterprises, respectively, emphasising, if possible and as appropriate, characteris-

tics that are somehow linked to skills and training. A further chapter will discuss appren-

ticeship, as it is currently practised in the sample enterprises. The paper ends with certain

conclusions that may be drawn from the data.

3


Chapter 1: Context

The country and the economy

Cameroon, a Central African country twice the size of Great Britain, had some fifteen

million inhabitants, with a per capita income of US$ 580, in 1999. Almost half of the coun-

try’s population is under 15 years old. Although the share of agriculture in national output

has seen major fluctuations over the last four decades, more than half of the working-age

population is still engaged in various agricultural activities. Petroleum products and timber

represent major shares in export earnings.

After gaining its independence, in 1960, the country experienced, first, a period of

modest, but balanced economic growth, followed, in the period 1977-1985, by more rapid

growth, averaging 7 per cent per year, and made possible mainly by increased oil revenues

and international borrowing. In the early 1980s, per capita income stood at US$ 1,100, and

healthy rates of domestic investment were reported. However, after 1985, deteriorating

terms of trade, a sharp decline in oil output, and a major appreciation of real exchange rates,

exposed the structural weaknesses of the economy, and triggered a profound recession. In

the words of World Bank sources, Cameroon coped with the unfavourable circumstances

by reducing producer prices and public expenditures, including a 50 per cent cut in civil ser-

vice wages, but the measures did not stimulate growth. By 1993, gross domestic product

had halved, and public utility services had declined markedly, due to lack of investment and

poor performance of state-owned firms. Government reduced considerably basic health

and education funding, leading to a major decline in health delivery systems and school en-

rolment rates.

Since the 50 per cent devaluation of the national currency, the CFA Franc, in January

1994, and the concurrent upswing in the world economy, there has been a slow return to

growth, at a rate that has accelerated, in recent years, to around five per cent per year, in real

terms. However, the dramatic social consequences of the economic and financial crisis, and

of the subsequent structural adjustment policies, are yet to be reversed. According to a 1996

household consumption survey, 51 per cent of households in the country were living below

the poverty line and 23 per cent were living in extreme poverty. Un- and under-employment

are said to be rampant. Social services have in many instances collapsed. Cameroon is

among the countries formally recognised as highly indebted and poor, and in the process of de-

veloping a strategy to help reduce poverty and restore the necessary social infrastructure, that

would qualify it for special assistance from the Bretton Woods institutions.

5


The labour market

In Cameroon, as in most other African countries, the modern, or formal, sector of the

economy is at best capable of absorbing a small fraction of those who enter the labour market

in ever-larger numbers. The formal sector is relatively small, and, for the time being, not nec-

essarily a net-creator of jobs. On the supply side, the country’s population is young and

steadily growing, and worsening poverty appears to boost female labour force participation.

Although the informal sector is by no means a new phenomenon, the economic crisis, and its

aftermath, have highlighted its role as a last, if not the only provider of work and income.

While the availability of reliable and comparable labour market data leaves much to

be desired, those generated by the statistical department (DSCN) of the Ministry of the

Economy and Finance, appear to present a plausible, if limited picture of the current em-

ployment situation in Cameroon. In 1996, the country’s working-age population was esti-

mated to be 6.7 million and, of those, 4.6 million were considered to make up the country’s

labour force, that is, to be either working, or not working but available for work. Some 4.2

million people were working, 15 per cent in the formal sector and 85 per cent in the infor-

mal sector. While almost equal numbers of women and men were employed, more women

than men were found to be working in the informal sector, while formal sector employment

was largely a male domain (see Table 1). The proportion of unemployed in the labour force

was estimated, at 8 per cent. However, unemployment was, generally, low, at half that rate,

in rural areas, and as much as 25 per cent, or more, in certain urban areas, including the city

of Yaoundé.

Table 1. Cameroon’s employed population, by sex, formal and informal sector, 1996

Male Female Total

No. % No. % No. %

Formal sector 517 205 12.2 111 337 2.6 628 542 14.8

Informal sector 1 666 329 39.4 1 937 222 45.8 3 603 551 85.2

Total 2 183 534 51.6 2 048 559 48.4 4 232 093 100.0

Source: DSCN, Cameroon Household Survey, 1996

Working in Yaoundé

The city of Yaoundé, some 200km land-inward from the Atlantic coast, is the capital

of Cameroon. Though not quite as big as the port city of Douala, it has seen its population

grow rapidly in the last quarter century from some 300,000 in 1975 to around 1.5 million in

2000. Clearly, such growth has in the first place been the result of people coming to town

from rural areas, in particular, in search of work and income. However, with so many job

seekers, the city’s relatively small formal sector was never, and will not in a long time be ca-

pable of absorbing more than a few of them. Indeed, the formal side of the Yaoundé labour

market appears to have been shrinking, mainly as a consequence of the economic and fi-

6


nancial crisis. With a large proportion of formal sector wage-employment being provided

by ministries and other public sector units, drastic government budget cuts have meant un-

precedented salary cuts, as mentioned, as well as major lay-offs. And, as a matter of course,

poverty grew worse than it already was.

Increasing numbers of job seekers, most of them young people, and women who had

not until then participated in the labour force, as well as recently retrenched workers, had

hardly an alternative, therefore, but to turn to informal sector activities for their livelihood.

Typically, the young would start as a family helper or an apprentice, others would seek ca-

sual or more permanent wage-work, but most would sooner or later be self-employed,

working alone, or with one or two other people.

The informal sector, as has been extensively documented7, consists of micro- and

small, unincorporated private enterprises, involved in a broad variety of economic activi-

ties. Highly visible, particularly in the fast growing cities of developing countries, the en-

terprises tend to be overlooked in national statistics and to be otherwise unaffected by the

prevailing framework of government regulation. As a general rule, the units are operating

at low levels of technology, productivity and income. And people who work in the sector

are, more often than not, doing so in unsavoury conditions and at high levels of risk.

With meaningful labour market information hard to come by, and carefully collected

informal sector data practically unheard of, it is certainly difficult to have a clear and com-

plete picture of work in cities such as Yaoundé. However, a major survey of the city’s labour

market, undertaken in 1993, by the DSCN and a French research network, called DIAL,

provides several useful insights. This survey found, inter alia, that 56 per cent of Yaoundé’s

economically active population was involved in informal sector activities, four out of five

of them as own-account or self-employed workers. Indeed, the survey confirmed that infor-

mal sector wage-employment is relatively uncommon, in this case 10 percent. The formal

sector in the city employed 19 per cent of the labour force, most of them for wages, and 25

per cent of the Yaoundé labour force were considered unemployed. Some 89,000 informal

units were estimated, at the time, to employ approximately 125,000 people in various

non-agricultural economic activities, 40 per cent of them women. Two thirds of the enter-

prises were single worker affairs and only four per cent had more than three workers. More

than half of all the informal sector workers, were involved in trading. Other findings in-

cluded an average of eight years of schooling, a median income far below the official mini-

mum wage, and the fact that informal sector entrepreneurs financed up to 90 per cent of

their capital from their personal savings. One in six of the enterprises paid fees for trading

licences, and roughly one in five had been involved in some form of litigation with public

officials, usually settled with a “gift”. Nonetheless, excessive state intervention was cited

as a problem by only 13 per cent of respondents, far behind a major preoccupation with a

lack of customers and excessive competition8.

7


7 The “Google” internet search engine, yields some 70,100 results for the expression “informal sector” and anadditional 17,400 for the expression “informal economy”.

8 See: http://www.dial.prd.fr/en/publi/dialogue/dial5/art1.htm

Education and training

Most of Cameroon’s formal education and training system is diseased, particularly as

a consequence of years of under-funding and lack of proper management. Recovery is high

on the policy agenda, but appears slow to materialise. The background section of a 1997

World Bank report9, an analysis carried out to make the case for a basic education improve-

ment project, summed up the situation by finding, inter alia, that: “learning results at both

primary and secondary level have been very poor and are jeopardising human resource de-

velopment. In almost all parts of the country, primary school enrolment rates have been

falling over much of the past decade, and currently, the gross enrolment rate stands at 83 per

cent compared with 114 per cent ten years ago. Between 1987/88 and 1996/97, there was al-

most no recruitment of primary school teachers and thus the system became increasingly

dependent on teachers paid by parents10. Many teachers graduating from teacher training

colleges (which were only reopened in 1995/96 after being closed for five years) still lack

some of the skills needed for effective teaching. [...] The quality of the system has declined

resulting in average repetition rates of 29 per cent” 11.

Enrolment rates do not, however, present the whole picture of exclusion from the ed-

ucation system. Significant proportions of pupils, initially enrolled, never complete their

primary education. Moreover, while progress has been made in this respect, girls continue

to be under-represented in schools. In 1998/99 there were, on average, 48 girls per 100 pu-

pils in the first grade, and 39 girls per 100 pupils in the sixth grade of primary school. It has

been estimated that, for the country as a whole, half of all women over 11 years of age are il-

literate, as compared to 30 per cent of all men.

The World Bank report cited above, goes on to say that “technical colleges are not

providing meaningful job-oriented practical training due to a lack of teacher motivation,

poor planning of the disciplines that are taught, resource constraints, and a complete sepa-

ration between the colleges and the world of work”. And that “no education statistics were

collected between 1988 and 1995, and few if any other data sets have been available. The

Ministry has thus lacked the information needed to rationally plan the use of increasingly

scarce resources for the system.”

8


9 Report PID5206, found on the World Bank website: www.worldbank.org.

10 The Cameroon Ministry of Education estimates that it employed 17 433 primary school teachers (or one for every82 pupils) in 1998, as compared to 25 185 teachers (or one for every 50 pupils) in 1988. There was a shortage,therefore, of some 15,000 primary school teachers in 1998, based on an average of 50 pupils per teacher.

11 Other sources cite a gross enrolment rate of 75 per cent in 1995/96. It is not uncommon for gross enrolment rates toexceed 100 per cent, because they relate actual enrolments, for example in a 6-year primary school system, to thenumber of children in a corresponding 6-year age group (e.g. all children 6-11 years of age). And, obviously, thereare many 12- and 13- and even 16-year old children enrolled in the primary schools of Cameroon. Grossenrolment rates are, therefore, necessarily, high in countries which, for one reason or another, have many latestarters and/or high repeater rates. With a reported gross enrolment rate of 83 per cent, and a repeater rate of 29 percent, it is more than likely that almost half of all school-age children in Cameroon are not attending school.

Chapter 2: Informal Sector Entrepreneurs

The results of the Yaoundé survey of skills and work in the informal sector, derive

from structured interviews, conducted in the month of December, 2000, with 682 business

owners/entrepreneurs, in twelve selected trades (Table 2).

Table 2. Number of sample entrepreneurs, by activity and sex

ACTIVITY Total Men Women

Women’s dressmakers 54 20 34

Men’s tailors 47 46 1

Women’s hairdressers 74 10 64

Wood workers 73 72 1

Car mechanics 53 53 0

Masons, carpenters 53 53 0

Radio & electr. repair 43 43 0

Leather workers 51 51 0

Restaurants 65 25 40

Admin. services & cyber cafés 53 23 30

Refrigeration repair 45 45 0

Metal workers 71 71 0

TOTAL SAMPLE 682 512 170

The respondents, who in this paper will be mainly referred to as entrepreneurs, are

self-employed men and women who organise, manage and assume the risk of a business,

however small and whatever the trade. Having stratified the sample, inter alia to allow for a

comparison between male and female entrepreneurs, one in four of the respondents was a

woman. Almost all of the sample entrepreneurs were owner/operators, and more than three

out of four had actually created the business they were now running. While several were

working alone, most respondents were working together with one or two others, that is,

partners or associates, apprentices, wage employees or unpaid helpers, as will be elabo-

rated later. Again, almost all respondents said that running the business was their principal

activity, and only a few (six per cent) said that they were also engaged in other income earn-

9


ing activities, such as tending a garden or driving a taxi. Ninety six per cent of respondents

were Cameroon citizens.

Age of the entrepreneurs

The average (mean) age of the 682 sample entrepreneurs was 33 years. Only three per

cent in the total sample were less than 21 years of age, including the two youngest respon-

dents, a 14- and a 16-year old restaurant operator. Only four per cent in the whole sample

were over 50 years of age, including the two oldest respondents, a 69 years old tailor and an

85 years old wood worker. There are considerable age differences by activity. Average age

ranges from 27 years for women’s hairdressers to 41 years for men’s tailors. Whereas in the

sample as a whole precisely half the number of respondents is under 32, this is the case for

only 19 per cent of the men’s tailors and 25 per cent of the woodworkers. At the other end of

the spectrum are women’s hairdressers, of whom 87 per cent are under 32. A number of fac-

tors may explain such variation. Thus it appears that certain activities, such as women’s

hairdressing, are typically undertaken by young women, not only in Yaoundé, but else-

where as well. Interestingly, in the 1989 Lomé survey on which the present one is modelled,

the average age for women’s hairdressers was also 27 and significantly lower than for other

activities. Age variation among trades is also a function of the time it takes to be ready and

start one’s enterprise, and of the current attractiveness of certain activities from an income

point of view.

Comparing data for respondents under 27 years of age (28 per cent of the total sam-

ple), as opposed to respondents over 39 years (24 per cent of the total sample), suggests,

inter alia, that relatively younger entrepreneurs are more likely than older entrepreneurs to

have been born in Yaoundé. Younger respondents are also more likely to hail from a family

of wageworkers rather than a family of farmers, and to have undergone some form of

pre-employment vocational training (other than apprenticeship). Two thirds of both age

categories had been apprentices before becoming self-employed.

Male and Female Entrepreneurs

One in four of all entrepreneurs in the sample (170 out of 682) were women, almost

all of them occupied in four of the sample activities, namely, hairdressing for women, oper-

ating a restaurant, women’s dressmaking, and offering secretarial and internet services. It

may be recalled that sample activities were selected, partly, to ensure a significant number

of women respondents. It was, nonetheless, remarkable that, while men were also involved

in each of the four activities mentioned, no women entrepreneurs, except two, were found

in the remaining eight activities in the sample. This suggests that, at least in today’s infor-

mal sector of cities such as Yaoundé, there are more “male” than “female” trades outside of

commerce. Thus, men are involved, as are women, in making women’s dresses, whereas

making men’s clothing appears to be a male domain. Men are involved, as are women, in

operating restaurants, and, to a lesser extent, in doing women’s hair, both presumably fe-

male domains (cf. the case of Lomé). Interestingly, women are a majority among those pro-

10


viding informal administrative, e-mail and internet services, presumably, at once, a less

traditional trade and a rapidly growing employment opportunity for educated young people

with access to a computer.

Comparing male and female entrepreneurs may be done for the sample as a whole, it

being understood that this would, to a large extent, amount to comparing results for a group

of four, as opposed to a group of eight distinct sample activities. It appears more interesting,

therefore, to compare men and women engaged in, more or less, the same activity, in spite

of the fact that group sizes are smaller12. Thus it appears (Table 3) that men and women en-

trepreneurs involved in making dresses have far less in common than men and women run-

ning cyber cafés. Interestingly, women dressmakers are significantly better educated than

their male counterparts, unlike in the other two activities. This may well be a reflection of

believing that, in a context as prevailing in Yaoundé, relatively educated women have

fewer occupational options than men. It is also worth observing that, in at least two of the

three activities, men appear to make much more money (median revenues) than their fe-

male counterparts. This would be rather easy to explain if women were unable to spend the

same amount of time as men on their business activities, but this does not appear to be the

case.

Table 3. Differences between male and female entrepreneurs in selected activities

activity

women’sdressmaking

restaurantsadmin. services

& cyber cafe

male female male female male female

no. of entrepreneurs 20 34 26 40 23 30

av. age (years) 43 40 29 37 31 32

% from agric. family 63 39 38 40 30 27

% artisan/trader fam. 21 33 33 28 22 27

% wage worker fam. 16 27 29 33 48 47

% born in Yaoundé 0 18 17 20 17 31

% came for education 32 9 26 15 57 41

% came for work 63 15 48 13 13 21

% came with spouse 0 48 0 40 0 0

av. education (years) 7 12 12 10 18 15

% had voc. training 41 55 36 38 59 67

% was apprentice 79 58 40 13 45 48

% has apprentices 60 71 12 3 43 20

median revenues (‘000 fcfa) 168 130 250 240 197 112

11


12 In view of the relatively small number of men involved in women’s hairdressing (14 per cent of all hairdressers),and so as to stay clear of statistical bias, this activity has been left out of Table 3.

Family background and reasons for being in Yaoundé

Almost half of the sample entrepreneurs grew up in a family of farmers and, there-

fore, in a rural environment. The other half grew up, in roughly equal proportions, either in

families of artisans and traders, or families of wage-workers. Here again, one may observe

major variations by current economic activity. Most likely to have immediate roots in agri-

culture, were leather workers (three out of four) and those involved in either construction

trades or wood or metal work (almost two out of three). And least likely to have grown up in

a family of farmers were women’s hairdressers and those involved in administrative ser-

vices and cyber cafés (one out of four). Indeed, the two latter groups were most likely to hail

from a family of wage-workers (42 and 53 per cent, respectively). One third of men’s tailors

and those operating garages grew up in families of artisans or traders.

Chart 1. Family background of entrepreneurs, by activity, in percentages

Only 22 per cent of all entrepreneurs in the sample were born in Yaoundé. It was a

mere 10 per cent in the case of leatherworkers and 11 per cent of women’s dressmakers, as

against 47 per cent of women’s hairdressers. The others came to town for various reasons,

but most of all in search of work or for education and training purposes. For example, some

60 per cent of wood and metal workers had come to Yaoundé for work, whereas half of

those in administrative services and cyber cafés had come for their education. A sizeable

proportion of women entrepreneurs, notably women’s dressmakers and restaurant opera-

tors, had come with their husbands.

12


0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Women’s dressmakers

Men’s tailors

Women’s hairdressers

Wood workers

Car mechanics

Masons, carpenters

Radio & electr. repairs

Leather workers

Restaurants

Admin. & cyber cafés

Refrigeration repairs

Metal workers

farmers artisan / traders wage workers Unknown

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%


Men’s tailors


Wood workers

Car mechanics

Masons, carpenters


Leather workers

Restaurants



Metal workers

Born in Yaoundé Came for education Came for work Other reasons

Chart 2. Reasons for being in Yaoundé, by activity, percentages

Education

It appears that, together with gender, the type and level of one’s education, are key de-

terminants in choosing -or otherwise ending up in- a particular economic activity. As a

group, the entrepreneurs in the sample had had an average of eleven years of formal school-

ing. This supposedly high score appears consistent not only with finding that a mere eight

per cent of respondents said that they had not completed primary education, but also with

the fact that primary school repeater rates in Cameroon are exceedingly high. That being

said, school enrolment- and school completion data for the country as a whole, suggest that

those who operate their own business are, on average, far better educated than those who

don’t. Indeed, half of the sample entrepreneurs had obtained a diploma better than complet-

ing primary school. Six per cent reported to have obtained a university diploma. The com-

bined male entrepreneurs appeared to be somewhat more educated than the female

entrepreneurs in the sample, but, as was shown earlier, in the case of dressmakers, there are

certain activities where male operators are decidedly less educated than their female coun-

terparts.

13


Chart 3. Educational attainment of sample entrepreneurs

Note: the primary level consists of a 6-year cycle; the secondary, first cycle (Collège) adds, in principle, four more years

of either general or technical education; the secondary second cycle (Lycée) adds an other three years of either general of

technical education.

The forty-four per cent of respondents who had obtained one or another type of sec-

ondary school diploma of the French variety, had passed through either a general (25%) or a

technical stream (19%). Two-thirds of these diplomas were lower level ones, called BEPC,

in the case of general- and CAP in the case of technical education. The fact that more than

half of the entrepreneurs in the construction trades had followed a technical stream, as com-

pared to one in four in some of the other trades, is worth emphasising. What it probably

means is that masonry and carpentry feature more prominently in technical education

programmes than some other competencies.

Leatherworkers were, relatively speaking, the least educated of the sample entrepre-

neurs, having had an average of eight years of schooling; 22 per cent of them did not com-

plete primary school. Those involved in administrative services and cyber cafés were the

most educated, with an average of 17 years of schooling, and with 30 per cent of them hav-

ing obtained a university diploma. The relatively better educated entrepreneurs were, on

average, younger than the less educated, much more likely to have grown up in a family of

wage employees, and more likely, in addition to their general or vocational education, to

have undergone a period of vocational training.

Vocational Training

A surprisingly large proportion of the micro-entrepreneurs in the sample (45%), re-

ported that, apart from their formal schooling, they had been enrolled in some form of

14


0% 25% 50% 75% 100%


Men’s tailors


Wood workers

Car mechanics

Masons, carpenters


Leather workers

Restaurants



Metal workers

None Primary completed

First cycle of secondary completed (BEPC or CAP) Second cycle of secondary completed (BAC) or higher

pre-employment vocational training. The highest proportion, activity-wise, concerned en-

trepreneurs providing administrative and internet services. Almost two out of three of them

(63%) had had vocational training, no doubt mainly in private “secretarial colleges”,

where, in earlier days, they learned typing, and, more recently, how to use computers for

various purposes. Other sample activities with at least half of the entrepreneurs having un-

dergone vocational training, were women’s hairdressing (55%), women’s dressmaking

(50%), and repairing radios and other electrical equipment (55%). Relatively low scores,

just over one in four, were obtained for men’s tailors (29%) and car mechanics (28%).

The pre-employment vocational training reported on, consisted almost always of

courses of a relatively long duration. However, one may assume that most of the training

was of a part-time nature, taking, for example, only a few hours per week. Be that as it may,

half of those who were trained said they had spent more than two years on their training, and

fifteen percent, reportedly, five years or more. Eleven per cent spent six months or less. As

one would expect, the duration of training varied by activity, but may also have been a func-

tion of cost. Training for hairdressers and operators of cyber cafés did not normally extend

beyond two years, whereas the training of masons and carpenters, and of dressmakers, usu-

ally lasted more than two years.

Fifty eight per cent of those who had thus been trained, received their training in pri-

vate-for-profit institutions, many, no doubt, of the informal sector variety. Government

training institutions handled twenty four per cent, and the remainder of the trainees visited

non-governmental, not-for-profit institutions, such as run by religious organisations. Pri-

vate-for-profit providers catered in particular to men’s tailors, women’s hairdressers, radio

repair people and those offering administrative and internet services. Government institu-

tions appeared to have trained of most of the masons and carpenters in the sample.

Seventy two per cent of all who had followed vocational training courses, reported to

have paid fees. The share of those who had paid varied from ninety per cent in the case of

hairdressers and those providing administrative and internet services, to sixty five per cent

in the case of construction workers, and roughly half of the leather workers and car mechan-

ics. Fees were often relatively high, at an average FCFA 277,000 per course; they varied for

eighty per cent of those who paid, between FCFA 50,000 and FCFA 500,000 (appr. US$ 65

and US$ 650). Half of those who had paid fees, paid more than FCFA 170,000 (appr. US$

220).

That payments can be prohibitive may be concluded from finding that half of those

who had not had any vocational training said that this was mainly due to lack of money. An-

other 25 per cent of those who had not undergone pre-employment vocational training said

they had had no need for it, presumably because they had learned their skills in school, or as

apprentices, or simply by doing the job. Other reasons mentioned included giving prefer-

ence to apprenticeship, failing to pass an entry examination and lacking a husband’s per-

mission. A fair number of leather workers and men’s tailors pointed out that vocational

training in their trade was not available.

15


Apprenticeship

Two thirds of the sample entrepreneurs had passed through an age-old combination

of work and training, that is, a period of traditional apprenticeship, in addition to whatever

education and training they might have had. Some reported to have had two apprentice-

ships, presumably after dropping out of, rather than completing, a first attempt. As one

would expect, almost all had been apprentices in the trade they were currently practising.

The apprenticeships were of varying duration among and within different trades. In most

cases they lasted between two and three years. Those who had been apprentices in garages

had, more often than not, spent between three and four years. However, in the modern busi-

ness of providing computer-based services, an apprenticeship was usually completed

within nine months.

Table 4. Entrepreneurs having been apprentices, as a percentage of all, by activity, and

by average duration of the apprenticeship in months

ACTIVITY % has been apprentice average no. of months

Women’s dressmakers 65 27

Men’s tailors 78 30

Women’s hairdressers 59 10

Wood workers 69 32

Car mechanics 83 45

Masons, carpenters 71 30

Radio & electr. repair 71 29

Leather workers 61 23

Restaurants 23 20

Admin. services & cyber cafés 47 9

Refrigeration repair 74 33

Metal workers 90 35

TOTAL SAMPLE 65 28

Those running small restaurants were the only ones among the sample entrepreneurs

who had not usually been apprentices at an earlier stage in their career. Supposedly, few

skills are believed needed in this trade, which is typically carried out with unpaid family

helpers. And indeed, it is equally uncommon to find apprentices in informal sector eateries

elsewhere in West Africa.

16


It is important to recognise that pre-employment vocational training and traditional

apprenticeship were not mutually exclusive modes of skills development. In fact, signifi-

cant numbers of sample entrepreneurs having gone through some form of vocational train-

ing, also had been apprentices. It was particularly so in the case of metal workers and car

mechanics. Among several possible explanations, it would seem reasonable to suggest that

their training, which, more often than not, would have preceded their apprenticeship, did

not suffice for entering directly into wage- or self-employment.

Most useful learning experience

In answer to the question which kind of education or training had, in their lives so far,

been the most useful, apprenticeship, which 66 per cent of all respondents had gone

through, scored slightly higher (at 26 per cent) than general education, which scored 24 per

cent. Although almost all respondents had completed primary education, or gone further in

school, general education scored relatively low. It was most valued, on the one hand, by

those who, on average, had had most of it, that is those operating cyber cafés, and, on the

other hand, by those operating restaurants, in whose case apprenticeship and other forms of

pre-employment training are uncommon.

Apprenticeship came first for almost forty per cent of metal and leather workers, and

for one in three of the car mechanics and women’s dressmakers in the sample. Technical ed-

ucation, at 14 per cent, got relatively high marks, if account is taken of the fact that less than

one in four respondents received such education. Vocational training, received by 45 per

cent, was most useful for 16 per cent of all respondents. However, among respondents who

had at least completed primary school, and, in addition, gone through vocational training,

as well as a period of traditional apprenticeship (together some 20 per cent of all respon-

dents), 37 per cent mentioned vocational training.

Asked whether they would like their child to be an apprentice, irrespective of the

trade, a majority of sample entrepreneurs (57 per cent) said they would. Only in the case of

hairdressers, most of them relatively well educated women, and in the case of restaurant

owners, mostly women and in a trade where apprenticeship is less common, did less than

half of the respondents express what should be considered a positive view of traditional ap-

prenticeship.

17


Table 5. Most useful education or training experience, by activity, percentage of

sample entrepreneurs (answer “other” not included)

ACTIVITY

Generaleducation

Technicaleducation

Vocationaltraining

Appren-tice-ship

Workitself

% % % % %

Women’s dressmakers 6 22 22 33 17

Men’s tailors 33 4 13 28 17

Women’s hairdressers 25 14 19 24 18

Wood workers 25 21 13 19 19

Car mechanics 17 9 15 36 23

Masons, carpenters 23 23 8 27 17

Radio & electr. repair 19 14 30 28 9

Leather workers 18 4 6 39 29

Restaurants 42 15 6 11 22

Admin. serv./cybercafés 42 9 28 4 13

Refrigeration repair 27 18 16 30 9

Metal workers 13 9 17 39 22

TOTAL 24 14 16 26 18

Career paths

The diverse periods that respondents have spent on education, pre-employment vo-

cational training, apprenticeship, previous work, unemployment and non-participation in

the labour force, may be seen to add up to individual “career paths”. An attempt to construct

typical pathways, by activity, and based on the average duration of distinct career phases, is

illustrated in Chart 4. This particular illustration is in relative terms, that is, it represents, for

each of the activities, the relative duration of each phase between entering school and enter-

ing current self-employment. Beginning at the bottom, with the share of years in school, the

virtual path moves up, via the shares of vocational training and apprenticeship, through

phases representing years without work and years in previous employment. It should be un-

derstood that the typical path is a composite: survey respondents have neither necessarily

passed through each and every phase, nor always in the sequence proposed in the bar

chart13. In absolute terms the total length of the paths varies, roughly between 17 and 23

years after entering primary school, as the average duration of different phases varies, de-

pending on who goes where.

18


13 The likely fact that not all entrepreneurs will have gone through each and every phase, is reflected in the averageduration per phase. Thus, a short average duration may reflect that most entrepreneurs in the activity concerned,spent a short time, if any, doing this, or, alternatively, that a few entrepreneurs spent a long time each. Moreover,as is likely in the case of those whose training has been part-time, or in the case of those in school doing casualjobs, or unpaid family work, certain phases may, in real life, have overlapped.

Chart 4. Entrepreneurs’ career paths, relative duration per phase

With the necessary caution, one could conclude that years spent in school repre-

sented, in all but one activity, half or more of what it took respondents to reach their current

position. Which reflects the relatively high level of education of entrepreneurs in the sam-

ple, as well as the high repeater rates that are common in the country. Clearly,

pre-employment vocational training and apprenticeship were relatively less important in

terms of their duration (emphasis added). Periods without work include unemployment

and years outside the labour force. They appear rather unimportant, except perhaps in the

case of women running restaurants and making dresses, whose average age suggests that

over the years they have had to spent considerable amounts of time away from work, pre-

sumably to look after children (unlike in the case of much younger female hairdressers).

The share of previous employment, either as unpaid family helper, wage-worker or inde-

pendent worker, clearly is important, even in the case of activities carried out by relatively

young entrepreneurs. This means that relatively few respondents had started their current

enterprise straight after completing their apprenticeship, let alone upon leaving the school

system. This is confirmed by finding that most respondents had started their current busi-

ness with their own savings, which took, no doubt, some time to accumulate.

Skills needed and skills acquired

Naturally, a wide range of technical and other skills and competencies may be associ-

ated with the twelve sample activities. Entrepreneurs, across the board, agreed, however,

that technical skills, specific to their current activity, were the most important of all, even if

nine per cent of respondents put “talking with customers” on top. Technical skills were

also, by far, the first priority for further training, as will be elaborated below. In addition to

technical skills and competencies, there are various generic skills and core competencies,

19


more or less common to all activities, such as reading and writing, keeping books, calculat-

ing costs, marketing, training one’s personnel, repairing machines, or using computers. Re-

spondents were presented with a list and, first, asked how important such skills and

competencies were in their particular trades. They were subsequently asked whether they

had acquired them and, if so where.

It appeared that, generally speaking, most entrepreneurs found most of the generic

skills mentioned very important. However, some skills received more votes than others did.

For example, negotiating with suppliers and/or customers was almost unanimously judged

an important skill, except by a few caterers, probably used to fixed prices. Book keeping

was considered very important by 36 per cent, and somewhat important by 18 per cent,

yielding a combined score of just over half of all respondents. These percentages usually

varied by activity, however. Construction workers (69 per cent of them) and restaurant

owners (64 per cent) were obviously more convinced of the importance of book keeping

than leather workers (24 per cent) or hairdressers (44 per cent). While two in three radio re-

pair people didn’t see the importance of being able to manipulate a pocket calculator, two in

three construction workers wouldn’t leave home without one. Training or coaching skills

were, as might be expected, considered most important by entrepreneurs with most appren-

tices. And marketing skills were considered most important in the trade with the lowest av-

erage revenue, that is, by 84 per cent of women’s hairdressers, as compared to half of the

radio repair people, who typically earned twice as much.

While it is not surprising that those who could read and write had learned it in school,

most of the other generic skills on the list, had been acquired on the job and often during ap-

prenticeship. Pre-employment vocational training was not usually mentioned as a source of

such skills and competencies, except by electrical repair people and cyber café owners re-

ferring to repairing machines and computer use.

Having verified that respondents who said that they had acquired a particular skill al-

most always attached importance to it, skill deficiencies, or training needs, could be as-

sumed to exist where entrepreneurs, who found certain skills important had not actually

acquired them.14 Thus it was found that, depending on the activity, applying for and manag-

ing credit, was considered an important skill by between 47 and 70 percent of respondents,

while between 26 and 40 per cent said that they knew how to do this. By subtraction, it can

be concluded that between 12 and 35 per cent of the entrepreneurs concerned might be in-

terested in and benefit from pertinent training.

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Very or somewhat important Have the skill

Chart 5. Skills gap: Apply for and manage credit

Between 50 and 84 percent of respondents attached importance to marketing skills,

and between 36 and 68 per cent had acquired these. And book keeping, to cite a final

example, was considered important by between 24 and 69 per cent, while between 38 and

67 per cent of respondents, reportedly, mastered the tricks of that trade.

Chart 6. Skills gap: Marketing

21


0%

20%

40%

60%

80%


Chart 7. Skills gap: Book keeping

Interest in further training

Having established their education and training histories, and having looked into

possible skill gaps, the entrepreneurs in the sample were then asked whether, for the future,

there were subjects or skills they would like to learn or improve. Focusing first on subjects,

or particular skills, which had some relationship with their current activity, interest in fur-

ther training was expressed by more than 70 per cent of all the sample entrepreneurs. Not

surprisingly, all but two of those providing administrative and internet services were inter-

ested in further training, particularly in updating their skills in the use of computer hard-

ware and software. However, an interest in computer skills was also expressed by

respondents in other trades. Keen interest in further training existed also among car me-

chanics and people repairing refrigerators, radios and other electrical equipment. Although

at least half of entrepreneurs in each of the sample activities said to be interested in further

training, men’s tailors and those who were operating restaurants were somewhat less inter-

ested than others.

Eighty per cent of respondents considered further training in technical subjects more

important than further training in other subjects, such as management, marketing, or book

keeping. In response to a related question, namely why, if such training was so important,

they had not already done it, 60 per cent of those concerned said that they could not afford

the training fees. Another 19 per cent did not have the time for it, and nine per cent said that

the training they needed was not available.

Opinions were divided as concerns the most appropriate location for such further

training. One third of all respondents favoured a governmental institution, one third a

non-governmental, i.e. a private institution, and one third had either no preference or men-

22


20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%


tioned another place, such as on the job or at home. It may be assumed that these answers re-

flect, to a large extent, what sort of training the respondents know to be provided by

different institutions. For example, two out of three of the entrepreneurs involved in admin-

istrative and internet services, answered that private providers were the best, if not the only

place to go. Asked about their preferred manner of training, a majority of respondents said

they favoured standard lecturing with demonstrations, as appropriate. One in four, how-

ever, was more interested in “hands on”, practical training and/or seminars.

Around half of the respondents said they might also be interested in further training

not immediately related to their current activities. Again, technical skills in general (and

computer skills in particular) scored much higher than marketing or management skills.

Some respondents mentioned foreign language skills and driving lessons. There should be

no doubt, therefore, if one goes by the results of this survey, that people who operate infor-

mal sector enterprises in Yaoundé, are thinking of getting additional training. Indeed, when

asked, in a separate question, whether they would have liked to have gone further in their

studies, more than three in four respondents said that this was the case, with only limited

variation among the diverse activities.

23


Chapter 3: Informal Sector Enterprises

Nine out of ten respondents operated their business in a fixed location. In fact, almost

all of them did, if masons and carpenters are excluded. The activities were either carried out

where the operators lived, meaning at home, or in a separate location, such as a workshop

with a roof, a market place, a street corner, or a back-yard.

The literature on the informal sector likes to point out that the micro-enterprises mak-

ing up the sector, are typically unregistered. And there are commentators who habitually

explain that these enterprises don’t seek to be registered for fear of paying taxes. This is not

necessarily the case, however, of the large numbers who trade their wares in municipal mar-

kets and who pay rent (and/or a tax) for their stalls. Nor is it always true of enterprises in-

volved in manufacturing and in services such as those covered in the present sample. Most

of them are likely to pay at least local taxes for being where they are. Moreover, since a ma-

jority appears to make use of electricity, one imagines that the utility company concerned

would know where to send the bills, even if the enterprise is not home-based. The registra-

tion issue is, therefore, supposedly, mainly a matter of who is being registered by whom and

for what purposes.

That being said, only one in six of the sample enterprises reported to be inscribed on

the Commerce Register, which means that they had a number needed to collaborate with

public agencies. Only a handful of respondents (four per cent) was registered with the na-

tional social security administration (CNPS), which means that virtually none of the enter-

prises in the sample made payments towards the social protection of their personnel.

However, some 40 per cent of all sample entrepreneurs, and half of the respondents in five

out of the twelve sample activities, were known to government for having a tax-payers

and/or a SCIFE number. The latter concerns a register kept by the statistical department of

the Ministry of Finance.

Only relatively few, on average one in six of the respondents, were members of an as-

sociation of artisans, or similar grouping. Car mechanics (23 per cent), hairdressers (22 per

cent), construction workers and restaurant operators (20 per cent), were somewhat more

likely than others to be thus organised.

Creation and age of the enterprise

Three out of four enterprises in the sample had been created by their current operator.

Most of these operators (60 per cent) had started the enterprise with their own savings; an

other 19 per cent had relied on gifts or loans from family members or friends; and five per

25


cent had relied on a rotating savings and credit association (tontine). Remarkably, 13 per

cent said that they had started without any money, and only one per cent mentioned credit

from a bank.

The conventional wisdom that informal sector enterprises may grow like mushrooms

but die like flies, is put to the test by finding out how long the living ones have been in busi-

ness15. At the time of interviewing their operators, almost half (46 per cent) of the sample

enterprises had existed two years or less. Included were thirteen per cent that had existed

less than six months. At the other end of the range, twenty per cent had existed nine years or

more. The average (mean) age for the sample enterprises combined, was 5.2 years. Restau-

rants, cyber cafés (which, of course, nobody had heard of until a few years ago), and hair-

dressing shops, all activities, by the way, with a majority of female entrepreneurs, were

found to be, on average, less than three years old. The enterprises of wood workers, men’s

tailors and construction workers, almost exclusively operated by men, were found to be, on

average, more than seven-and-a-half years old. Surely, one should be careful not to jump to

conclusions, as a range of factors is likely to influence the average age of enterprises, in-

cluding the age, sex and skills of the entrepreneur, the current popularity of the trade, and

current demand for the goods and services produced. That being said, it seems fair to con-

clude that a considerable proportion of the informal sector enterprises in the sample had

passed the critical start-up period, and, therefore, to suggest that they had shown to be via-

ble.

Chart 8. Percentage of sample enterprises by age of enterprise

26


0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

20%

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 27 28 30 36 40

Age of the sample enterprises (years)

Perc

en

tag

eo

fen

terp

rises

15 When unable to calculate average life expectancy, one may draw inferences about viability from the average ageof a population. That being said, the conventional wisdom referred to, supposedly, compares informal withformal enterprises, which we do not.

Size of the enterprise and worker characteristics

While the Yaoundé sample was designed to capture sufficiently large numbers of en-

terprises involved in selected economic activities, it was not stratified so as to exclude, a

priori, enterprises beyond a certain level of employment. That being the case, a total of

2274 people were found to be working in the 682 sample enterprises, or 3.3 per enterprise,

including the entrepreneur. Average enterprise size varied by activity, between 1.6 for

leather workers and 2.2 in restaurants, and, at the other end, 5.7 for construction trades and

6.1 in garages, always including the entrepreneur. The latter two activities were the only

ones in the sample with a significant proportion, namely almost half of all enterprises, hav-

ing more than five workers. However, in less than three per cent of all enterprises in the

sample, employment exceeded 10 workers, while no enterprise had more than 20 workers.

In almost one in four (24%) of all sample enterprises, the entrepreneur was working alone.

Two out of three enterprises had up to three workers including the entrepreneur. In other

words, micro-enterprises were the norm, and if size were the key variable in classifying en-

terprises as either formal or informal, the present sample would easily qualify as essentially

informal.

Chart 9. Number of persons, including the entrepreneur, having worked in the

enterprise during the preceding week, percentages of all enterprises in

the sample

27


0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 18 20

Number of persons having worked in

the enterprise in the preceding week

Perc

en

tag

eo

fen

terp

rises

Almost all (659) of the respondents provided some additional information about

1320 other workers in their enterprises, 347 of them women workers16. They were 687 ap-

prentices (including 207 women), and a total of 633 workers with another status, namely,

131 business partners, 307 permanent and 102 occasional wage- workers, and 93 unpaid

family helpers. Simplifying matters, one might say that an average informal sector enter-

prise, involved in activities such as those covered by the sample, consisted of the boss and

two co-workers, namely, the apprentice and someone else.

Table 6. Employment in sample enterprises, by activity, by employment status, as a

percentage of total employed including the owner/entrepreneur

ACTIVITYowner partner

w.worker

fam. aid apprent total

% % % % % no.

Women’s dressmakers 31 2 13 4 49 170

Men’s tailors 44 7 8 1 40 109

Women’s hairdressers 37 4 14 6 40 198

Wood workers 28 4 30 9 28 250

Car mechanics 20 11 18 0 51 251

Masons, carpenters 24 12 37 1 26 216

Radio & electr. repair 37 8 12 3 40 114

Leather workers 62 6 4 5 22 81

Restaurants 42 7 36 12 3 146

Admin. serv./ cyber cafés 35 6 34 3 22 133

Refrigeration repair 37 6 5 7 45 115

Metal workers 35 5 16 7 38 196

TOTAL SAMPLE 33 7 21 5 35 1979

Twenty-one per cent of all those working in sample enterprises, worked for wages,

and three out of four of them were permanent, as opposed to occasional employees. Not

surprisingly, a relatively large share of the occasional wage-workers in the sample (30 per

cent) worked in construction firms, whose workers are known to move from job to job (and

from firm to firm). In restaurants there were relatively high shares of permanent

wage-workers and unpaid family helpers (35 and 12 per cent of total employment, respec-

tively). While apprentices were common in all sample activities, except restaurants, they

represented half of total employment in garages and in the workshops of women’s dress-

makers.

28


16 The 23 enterprises that did not answer a set of questions for each of the persons they employed, were, primarily,the relatively larger enterprises of wood workers, car mechanics and construction trades. These non-respondentsemployed, together, 295 workers, or an average of 12.8 each, including the entrepreneur. Thus, the total numberof workers in the sample enterprises was 2,274.

Three out of four co-workers did not belong to the owner/entrepreneur’s family. And

those who were related, were not usually a spouse or child. This finding seems to belie the

notion that informal sector enterprises are mostly family affairs. Activity-wise, family

members were most present in restaurants (45 per cent of co-workers) and least present in

garages and radio repair services (13 percent of co-workers).

Whereas the entrepreneurs in the sample were, typically, in their mid-thirties, their

co-workers tended to be younger, that is, partners and wage-workers were, on average, in

their late twenties, while unpaid family helpers and apprentices were, on average, in their

early twenties. Child labour was hardly an issue in the sample enterprises. Out of the 2274

workers covered in the survey, one was ten years old, five were twelve, one was thirteen,

and twenty-one were fourteen years old. As concerns gender, a fairly strict segmentation

was observed, in that male entrepreneurs appeared to employ other men, while female en-

trepreneurs employed other women, except perhaps in the case of the male tailors in the

sample who employed a significant number of female apprentices.

As was illustrated in an earlier section, sample entrepreneurs were relatively well ed-

ucated, albeit with considerable differences between activities. It appears that, as a group,

business partners and wage-workers were slightly less educated than owner/entrepreneurs,

while unpaid family helpers and apprentices were considerably less educated, possibly a

reflection of the collapse of the national education system in recent years.

Depending on their employment status, co-workers were paid different amounts in

different ways. Naturally, most owners and their business partners, if they had any, shared

what income was left after all expenses were paid, although some reported that they took a

fixed amount, or a fixed share of earnings, each week or month. In the case of the 409

wage-workers in the sample, 57 percent had fixed wages, 17 per cent worked on a

piece-rate basis, and the others received a share of whatever income was earned, presum-

ably at the discretion of the entrepreneur. Most of those paid at piece-rate were occasional

workers, notably so in the construction sector. About half of the apprentices received

pocket money, and one in six apprentices were said to earn wages, presumably at a lower

level of pay than regular wage-workers. Other apprentices earned in kind, or not at all.

Finally, and paradoxically perhaps, many of those listed as unpaid family helpers also re-

ceived some monetary reward for their work, mostly in the form of pocket money.

Working hours

Six days of nine or ten hours each, appeared to be a standard working week for those

who were working in the sample enterprises, with only minor variations among the selected

activities, and by employment status. In other words, whether entrepreneur or

wage-worker, unpaid helper or apprentice, whether working in a garage, or in a restaurant,

or in the workshop of a wood- or metalworker, almost all reported to work somewhere be-

tween 54 and 60 hours per week. Surely, it seems unlikely that all of the workers were per-

manently busy. In many instances, it may be assumed, given low levels of productivity, that

workers present in the workplace, and ready to work, were actually waiting for customers.

29


Technology and equipment

A question was included in the survey about the use made of electricity for purposes

other than lighting, considering that this would yield a rough indicator, both of the physical

circumstances in which enterprises operated, and of their level of technology. In fact, elec-

tricity use was found to be widespread. In seven of the twelve sample activities almost all

enterprises said they used it. Well over half of the wood and the leather workers, and of the

car mechanics in the sample, also used electricity. The only activities in which electricity

users represented a minority (30%) were, not surprisingly, what are mostly open air restau-

rants and construction firms.

In order to obtain a general impression of the sort of equipment available, sample entre-

preneurs were asked, inter alia, whether or not, in their enterprise, they used hand tools, elec-

trical tools, machines, technical manuals, safety gear, measuring tapes, calculators and/or

computers, and a car perhaps, and a telephone. And they did, in varying degrees. Almost all,

in all trades, used hand tools, and many used electrical equipment. The common reliance on

technical manuals and brochures, as illustrated in the table below, is another rough indicator

of technological sophistication, or perhaps the lack of it. And so is the use of security equip-

ment, such as protective gloves, eyeglasses or boots. Computers are, naturally, concentrated

in cyber cafés, providing administrative and internet services, but they also begin to show up

in other trades. Telephones, often of the mobile variety, are increasingly common. Cars were

owned by twelve per cent of the sample entrepreneurs, including one third of the car mechan-

ics. In contrast, there were only half a dozen sample entrepreneurs who said they used bicy-

cles or motorbikes.

Table 7. Percentage of entrepreneurs using certain tools and equipment, by activity

ACTIVITYelec.

equipt.ma-

chinestechnicalmanuals

safetygear

calcula-tor

com-puter

tele-phone

Women’s dressmakers 91 24 28 15 35 2 31

Men’s tailors 96 6 51 6 26 4 15

Women’s hairdressers 95 12 27 36 23 0 19

Wood workers 60 37 40 33 41 1 26

Car mechanics 42 38 30 51 32 2 38

Masons, carpenters 32 26 43 49 53 8 42

Radio & electr. repairs 98 16 60 26 33 16 53

Leather workers 55 20 6 4 10 0 10

Restaurants 31 2 8 11 25 0 15

Cyber cafés 94 23 38 17 57 81 60

Refrigeration repair 82 31 44 47 49 29 29

Metal workers 86 27 21 73 48 3 34

TOTAL SAMPLE 71 22 32 32 36 11 30

30


Performance of the enterprise

It is notoriously difficult, simply by asking, to learn precisely how much money is be-

ing made in enterprises such as included in the present sample. There is first the problem of

reaching a common understanding of what exactly is to be measured, and, secondly, of ob-

taining a, more or less, correct answer to the pertinent question. While the latter problem

may be mitigated by correcting for extremes, and by assuming that respondents tend to un-

der- or over-report by similar margins, the former, conceptual problem, represents a risk of

comparing apples and oranges. Naturally, if measuring enterprise performance engenders

the risk of not getting it quite right, one should be careful in trying to demonstrate how dif-

ferences in performance relate to variables such as concerning the entrepreneur’s education

and training. Keeping this in mind, the main aim in discussing the performance of sample

enterprises, is to present orders of magnitude and significant differences among activities.

A modest attempt will then be made to relate differences in performance to certain charac-

teristics of the sample entrepreneurs.

A first, rough indicator of enterprise performance concerns monthly business turn-

over, or gross revenue. Results for the sample as a whole, corrected by eliminating “ex-

treme” values17, suggest an average (mean) monthly turnover of around Fcfa 235,000

(US$305) The mean, may present a somewhat inflated picture, however, as a consequence

of there being a few enterprises in the sample with relatively high revenues. The median,

which, with half of the sample enterprises on either side, provides perhaps a better perspec-

tive, was Fcfa 150,000 (US$ 195). The bottom twenty-five percent of enterprises took in

Fcfa 70,000 or less, while the top twenty-five per cent took in Fcfa 300,000 or more. The

latter figure implies that three out of four enterprises took in less than US$ 400 per month,

confirming the fact that the sample essentially consists of micro-enterprises.

Obviously, income figures vary considerably among activities, as is illustrated both

in Table 8 and Chart 10 below. The lowest average (mean) gross revenue per enterprise was

recorded for leather workers, at Fcfa 106,000 (US$ 138), with half of them taking in less

than Fcfa 60,000 (US$78) per month. Women’s hairdressers were next, at an average of

Fcfa 125,000 (US$ 162) per month, and with half of these enterprises making Fcfa 84,000

(US$ 109) or less. At the other end of the spectrum were restaurants and woodworkers, and,

outstripping all the others, construction enterprises, the latter with average monthly gross

revenues at Fcfa 506,000 (US$ 657) and half of the respondents taking in Fcfa 360,000

(US$ 468) or more.

The fact that income among enterprises engaged in the same activity is far from

evenly distributed may be concluded from substantive differences between mean and me-

dian figures as included in Table 8. It is also illustrated in Chart 11, presenting first, second

and third quartile gross revenue ceilings for each of the sample activities. Thus one finds,

for example, that, in the case of women’s dress makers, 25 per cent of enterprises took in

31


17 The “correction” eliminates ten per cent of responses in total, that is, five per cent at the top and five per cent at thebottom end of the range. Gross revenue for the remaining ninety per cent of enterprises ranges between Fcfa24,000 (US$31) and Fcfa 1,450,000 (US$1,883) with a mean of Fcfa 235,000. If one per cent of responses hadbeen left out at both ends of the range, the mean turnover would have been Fcfa 282,000. Without any correction,the mean turnover would have been Fcfa 363,000.

less than Fcfa 70,000 in gross revenue, that half of the enterprises took in less than Fcfa

150,000, and that 75 per cent took in less than Fcfa 244,000. In the case of restaurants, the

corresponding quartiles were Fcfa 150,000, Fcfa 257,000 and Fcfa 400,000.

Chart 10. Median of net and gross revenues, per activity, in '000 Fcfa

As value added may differ considerably between different activities, net revenues,

that is, gross revenues minus the costs of all inputs, may be judged a better indicator, for

comparing enterprise performance. Caution is again urged, however, in taking the net data

too literally, as they are the debatable outcome of subtracting one, roughly, estimated

amount from another. That being said, it seems abundantly clear that the entrepreneurs in

this sample, more often than not, were left with only modest gains. Half of the enterprises of

leatherworkers, who, as noted earlier, were the least educated among the sample entrepre-

neurs, were left with less than Fcfa 33,000 (US$43) per month after all inputs had been paid

for, and the bottom 25 per cent of enterprises netted, at best, half that amount . In the middle

of the net income range were women’s dressmakers, cyber cafés and restaurants. For

example, the quartiles values for restaurants were Fcfa 35,000, Fcfa 84,000 and Fcfa

185,000. Average net revenue per construction enterprise per month, was calculated to be

Fcfa 364,000 (US$ 473), with half of the enterprises netting Fcfa 225,000 (US$ 292) or

more. In the case of the construction trades, however, it is not always easy to distinguish net

earnings and labour costs, as entrepreneurs, typically operate in ad-hoc consortia of differ-

ent specialists.

32


50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Net revenues

Gross revenues

Chart 11. Gross revenue ceilings, per quartile and per activity

An admittedly crude indicator of labour productivity is obtained by dividing gross

revenue by the total number of workers in the enterprise, irrespective of their employment

status and their hours of work. It is also an income indicator, in as much as output per

worker represents the base (or rather the ceiling) for individual earnings. Thus, median

gross revenues per worker were the highest, at Fcfa 120,000 for restaurants and the lowest,

at Fcfa 30,000 for hairdressers, a difference which is plausible given the much lower share

of labour in total costs in the case of restaurants. In any case, figures of this magnitude sug-

gest average earnings, for most workers, and irrespective of the activity they are involved

in, of not much more than a dollar per day.

33


0

100

200

300

400

500

600

25% of enterprises

50% of enterprises

75% of enterprises

Table 8. Average gross and net monthly revenues (corrected) as well as gross revenues

per worker, thousands of FCFA, mean and median

ACTIVITY

Gross revenuesper

enterprise

Gross revenuesper worker

Net revenues perenterprise

mean median mean median mean median

Women’s dressmakers 211 150 83 50 106 80

Men’s tailors 178 120 92 52 115 66

Women’s hairdressers 125 84 50 30 67 41

Wood workers 334 250 118 83 174 100

Car mechanics 245 175 56 35 132 68

Masons, carpenters 506 360 161 66 364 225

Radio & electr. repair 184 120 85 54 103 55

Leather workers 106 60 75 50 60 33

Restaurants 333 257 176 120 132 84

Admin. services & cyber cafés 212 130 80 56 132 46

Refrigeration repair 165 125 71 48 66 51

Metal workers 233 175 78 53 105 57

TOTAL SAMPLE 234 150 94 54 125 61

When owners who had been in business for at least a year were asked how they were

doing, compared to previous years, only one in four respondents said that business was

better than before. Some 46 per cent said that business was down; 26 per cent said that is

was about the same; and four per cent didn’t know. Men’s tailors, and those repairing radios

and other electrical equipment, were least likely to be pleased, with only around 16 per cent

of them reporting to be better off. Construction workers, and those running a restaurant,

certainly appeared to be more successful, with around 38 per cent of them reporting that

business was up.

Enterprise performance depends, of course, on a broad range of factors, many of

them hard to quantify. In search of proxies, and with the necessary reservations, one might

consider that an enterprise, which has both higher gross revenues, and higher gross reve-

nues per worker than other enterprises engaged in the same activity, is, relatively speaking,

more successful. If then, within each of the sample activities, on this basis, roughly equal

numbers of relatively high and relatively low performance enterprises are designated18, two

groups would result that might be compared so as to associate relative success, or the lack

of it, with certain characteristics of their entrepreneurs.

Thus, may be designated as high performance enterprises (HPE) those among all en-

gaged in the same activity who are, at the same time, in the top 40 per cent (Q4 and Q5) of

34


18 As was done in the 1989 Lomé survey; op. cit. pages 30-33.

gross revenues earners, and in the top 40 per cent (Q4 and Q5) of productivity levels. Like-

wise, may be designated as low performance enterprises (LPE) those among all engaged in

the same activity who are, at the same time, in the bottom 40 per cent (Q1 and Q2) of gross

revenues earners, and in the bottom 40 per cent (Q1 and Q2) of productivity levels. Applied

to the current sample, two groups would result, representing each about a quart of the total

population, namely one of 155 relatively high performers, and another of 146 relatively low

performers.

Table 9. Performance matrix: number of sample enterprises grouped in quintiles of

gross revenue and productivity levels

GROSS REVENUES

PR

OD

UC

TIV

ITY

Quintiles Q1 (low) Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (high) Total

Q5 (high) 5 5 14 30 57 111

Q4 15 9 19 36 32 111

Q3 17 24 36 22 16 115

Q2 32 37 20 19 4 112

Q1 (low) 40 37 24 6 1 108

Total 109 112 113 113 110 557

It may now be noted (Table 10) that enterprises with the better performance were

more likely to have been around for a while, and to be run by entrepreneurs who were some-

what older. The low performers among the entrepreneurs were somewhat more likely than

high performers to have been born in Yaoundé, less likely to have grown up in a family of

artisans or traders and more likely in a family of wage workers. Among the high perform-

ers, the relatively high share of those who came to town in order to find work, rather than,

for example, in order to get an education, may be noted. As regards education and training,

the relatively more successful entrepreneurs appeared to have gone somewhat further in

school than their less successful counterparts. They were more likely to have had some

form of pre-employment vocational training, and with 61 per cent, as compared to 64 per

cent for the low performers, they were slightly less likely to have been traditional appren-

tices. As one might expect, the more successful entrepreneurs cited finding equipment as

their major problem, rather than lacking customers, and it was the opposite for their less

successful colleagues. Finally, the validity of the exercise appears confirmed by finding, as

one would expect, that successful entrepreneurs (54 per cent of them) were more likely to

want their child to learn their trade than those who performed not as well (of whom 45 per

cent wanted this).

35


Table 10. Comparing what are designated relatively high performance (HPE) and

relatively low performance (LPE) sample enterprises in each of the twelve

sample activities, selected variables, percentages (unless otherwise stated)

Variable HPE LPE ALL

Proportion of enterprises (total = 557) 28 26 100

Enterprises less than 2 years of age 29 36 32

Enterprises 5 years of age or more 34 28 30

Average age of enterprise (in years) 5.6 4.8 5.2

Average number of workers (incl. entrepreneur) 2.9 3.2 3.3

Entrepreneurs 30 years of age 56 48 52

Female entrepreneurs 22 25 25

Entrepreneurs born in a family of wage-workers 22 31 27

Entrepreneurs born in a family of artisans or traders 28 21 22

Born in Yaoundé 18 22 22

Came to Yaoundé for education or training 15 26 20

Came to Yaoundé to find work 49 31 41

Using machines 29 23 22

Those having more than primary school completed 54 49 49

Did receive pre-employment vocational training 50 43 45

Did go through traditional apprenticeship 61 64 65

Most serious problem = finding equipment 23 18 22

Most serious problem = lack of customers 16 26 23

I would like my child to learn my trade 54 45 48

Problems and perspectives

Asked to list the most pressing problems in running their business, only six per cent

of the sample entrepreneurs reported to have no problems whatsoever. For the others, sev-

eral problems were cited repeatedly, albeit with sometimes considerable differences among

activities. A lack of clients was the number one problem for 23 per cent of the sample entre-

preneurs, with a range from five per cent for radio repair shops to 36 per cent of the

women’s hairdressers. Finding good equipment was the most pressing problem for 22 per

cent of all respondents. And the problem of clients who would not collect, or pay for what

they ordered, was cited as their main headache by 13 per cent, including 38 per cent of those

in the construction trades, and 23 per cent of the garages.

Obtaining credit came on top of the problem list for ten per cent of the combined re-

spondents, while another 13 per cent gave it second place. In other words, 23 per cent of the

sample entrepreneurs called it either their first or second most pressing problem. Scores per

36


activity for the five problems most frequently mentioned, either as first or as second most

pressing (by 78 and 73 per cent of all respondents, respectively) are in the 11.

Table 11. First or second most pressing problem in operating the enterprise, by activity,

percentage of all enterprises in the activity

ACTIVITY

lack ofclients

find goodequipment

badclients

red tapeetc.

obtaincredit

% % % % %

Women’s dressmakers 29 44 37 18 28

Men’s tailors 40 40 27 26 26

Women’s hairdressers 59 30 15 19 23

Wood workers 33 34 19 25 38

Car mechanics 37 39 41 35 22

Masons, carpenters 52 47 41 5 21

Radio & electr. repair 19 32 30 23 37

Leather workers 40 40 38 26 15

Restaurants 37 29 9 19 30

Admin. services & cyber cafés 39 46 11 33 16

Refrigeration repair 40 44 30 20 17

Metal workers 53 36 25 37 14

TOTAL SAMPLE 40 38 26 24 23

Asked whether they would like their child to learn their trade, almost one in two re-

spondents said they did (Table 12). This would seem to suggest that, although just short of a

majority, a lot of micro-entrepreneurs such as in the present sample, have, on balance, posi-

tive feelings about their employment and income situation. There was a considerable varia-

tion among trades, however. Most keen that their children get involved in the same business

were car mechanics (67 per cent of them) and people repairing refrigerators (59 per cent).

Least interested in the idea appeared restaurant owners, leather workers and hairdressers,

although even in their group one in three saw no inconvenience in the proposition. Asked

whether or not they would like their children to be apprentices, women entrepreneurs

seemed somewhat less convinced than their male colleagues, but on the whole, the proposi-

tion was carried.

A large majority of respondents, in all trades, confirmed that they would have liked to

have advanced further in school, even if not all of them seemed convinced that additional

education would have resulted in additional income.

37


Table 12. Percentage of entrepreneurs who would like to have gone further in their

studies, who would like their child to be an apprentice, who would like their

child to learn their trade, and who think that more education leads guarantees

bigger earnings, by activity

ACTIVITY

I would haveliked to havegone furtherin my studies

I would likemy child to bean apprentice

(any trade)

I would likemy child to

learn my trade

The more edu-cated you are,the more youearn in this

trade

% % % %

Women’s dressmakers 83 53 50 58

Men’s tailors 80 60 53 73

Women’s hairdressers 79 33 34 42

Wood workers 78 62 54 62

Car mechanics 62 67 67 73

Masons, carpenters 87 62 45 73

Radio & electr. repair 84 52 60 81

Leather workers 77 70 31 48

Restaurants 73 38 30 55

Admin. services & cyber cafés 87 66 51 80

Refrigeration repair 88 78 59 76

Metal workers 76 60 52 64

TOTAL SAMPLE 79 57 48 64

38


Chapter 4: Apprenticeship in the Enterprise

Apprenticeship as it is found in the informal sector enterprises of Yaoundé, and in cit-

ies all over West Africa, is an important phenomenon, both numerically, and in terms of ac-

quiring useful skills upon entering the world of work. It is a well respected, traditional

institution, no doubt because it is seen to deliver results. Moreover, it is a prime example of

self-regulation in the informal sector. In an earlier section it was seen that most of the sam-

ple entrepreneurs had been apprentices at the start of their working life. The present section

concerns apprenticeship as offered by these same entrepreneurs.

Table 13. Percentage of entrepreneurs who currently have, who had in the past, and

who never had apprentices, number of apprentices and average number of

apprentices in enterprises currently with apprentices, by activity

ACTIVITY

haveapprs

no. ofapprs

femaleapprs

averageno.

had inpast

neverhad

% No. % No. % %

Women’s dressmakers 67 84 89 2.3 21 12

Men’s tailors 45 44 77 2.1 38 17

Women’s hairdressers 61 79 99 1.8 15 24

Wood workers 56 71 0 1.7 21 23

Car mechanics 87 128 0 2.8 4 9

Masons, carpenters 57 57 0 1.9 26 17

Radio & electr. Repair 51 46 0 2.1 27 22

Leather workers 20 18 0 1.8 22 58

Restaurants 6 4 50 1.0 14 80

Admin. serv./cyber cafés 30 29 55 1.8 15 55

Refrigeration repair 61 52 0 1.9 11 28

Metal workers 59 75 3 1.8 10 21

TOTAL SAMPLE 50 687 30 2.0 20 30

Although the present survey does not enable one to be either categorical or precise, it

seems more than plausible that apprenticeship in Yaoundé involves many tens of thousands

of young people. As concerns the present sample, half of all enterprises had one or more ap-

39


prentices. Among the other half, 20 per cent had had apprentices in the past but did not have

them now, and 30 per cent had never had any. Restaurants were the only trade in which ap-

prentices appeared to be an exception rather than the rule. True, they were not necessarily

found in the enterprises of leather workers, but they were almost invariably part of the

workforce in garages and in the workshops of dressmakers. Fewer than one in ten car me-

chanics had never had apprentices, compared to four out of five restaurant operators who

had never had any.

Most of those in the sample who had never had apprentices, said that this was because

they had just started their enterprise, or because they didn’t think they needed any in their

sort of work. Entrepreneurs who had had apprentices in the past, but who did not have any at

this moment, cited various reasons, including that apprentices were not easy to find, and

that they caused problems.

Apprenticeship is not an exclusively male domain. Women apprentices are common

in activities that are mainly undertaken by women. There were also a few cases in this sam-

ple of female apprentices working with male tailors. All but one of the 79 hairdressing ap-

prentices in the sample, were women, as were 109 of the 128 apprentices in the two

tailoring activities, and 16 of the 29 apprentices in administrative services and cyber cafés.

As concerns the age of apprentices, they were, typically, around 20 years old, with

only limited variation within and between activities. That apprenticeship, as observed here,

should not be confounded with child labour, is borne out, furthermore, by the fact that al-

most nine out of ten apprentices working and learning in the sample enterprises had at least

completed primary school. More precisely, in terms of highest level of education achieved,

twelve percent of the apprentices had no school diploma whatsoever; fifty-four percent had

obtained a primary school diploma; eight per cent had obtained a full secondary school di-

ploma (Bac), or better; and twenty six per cent held a diploma in between primary com-

pleted and full secondary. As one would expect, there were major differences in education

levels among apprentices in different trades. On one side of the spectrum were those in ad-

ministrative and internet services, all of whom had completed primary and, more often than

not, a full secondary education, or more. On the other side were apprentices in leather- and

woodworking, very few of whom had obtained more than a primary school diploma.

It is of interest to find (see Table 14) that, on average, and in one but all of the sample

activities, entrepreneurs appeared significantly better educated than their apprentices, un-

like, for example, in the case of the earlier cited 1989 Lomé survey. Although the survey it-

self does not permit one to draw such conclusions, this would almost certainly be a

consequence of the fact that, as was mentioned, Cameroon’s education system has been se-

riously affected in recent years by overwhelming constraints. Indeed, the few available ed-

ucation statistics confirm a considerable drop in enrolment rates during the 1990s.

40


Table 14. Comparing education levels of sample entrepreneurs and their apprentices, by

activity, percentages of those having primary school completed or less (Prim),

and secondary school completed or more (Bac)

ACTIVITYEntrepreneurs Apprentices

%Prim %Bac. %Prim %Bac

Women’s dressmakers 43 8 75 0

Men’s tailors 61 13 60 2

Women’s hairdressers 48 8 58 1

Wood workers 50 21 85 1

Car mechanics 64 4 81 0

Masons, carpenters 39 17 73 0

Radio & electr. repair 45 26 53 2

Leather workers 73 4 89 0

Restaurants 53 19 67 0

Admin. services & cyber cafés 9 53 0 54

Refrigeration repair 50 14 81 0

Metal workers 72 5 81 0

TOTAL SAMPLE 50 16 71 3

Sample entrepreneurs with apprentices, currently or in the past, had, so far during

their career, had an average of ten apprentices. However, the finding that three out of four of

these entrepreneurs counted ten apprentices or less, means that the other quarter, presum-

ably the older entrepreneurs, had trained relatively large numbers. The largest average

number of past plus present apprentices per entrepreneur, was sixteen in the case of the con-

struction trades. Having asked how many of all these apprentices had abandoned their ap-

prenticeship before their learning time was up, gave an average drop-out rate of thirty per

cent. A high drop-out rate of forty per cent was calculated in the case of hairdressers, and

rates below twenty per cent for those in the construction trades and leather work.

Entrepreneurs with apprentices, at present, and those who had them in the past, said

they choose their apprentices based on a variety of criteria, with aptitude for the work and

honesty scoring relatively higher than education level or family ties.

Apprenticeships do not all have the same duration. Nor is the time it takes to be

“freed”, necessarily fixed in advance. Typically, in the present sample, one to

one-and-a-half year was a minimum, and three years a maximum period. An exception was

the new trade of operating cyber cafés, where apprenticeships lasted, on average, only half

a year, and nine months at most. In the case of hairdressing, a full year would usually do.

But in the case of garages, apprenticeships took longer, and lasted between two and four

years. In the construction trade, the end of a project might mean the end of an apprentice-

ship. In any event, the entrepreneurs in this sample did not appear to let apprenticeships go

41


on for ever, as is sometimes alleged. Their duration was said to vary, depending largely on

how quickly apprentices learned, and, to a lesser extent, on education levels (69 and 15 per

cent, respectively). In a few cases it was said to be for the apprentice to decide. In any event,

it appears justified to consider apprenticeship of the sort found in informal sector enter-

prises in Yaoundé, an obvious example of competency-based training. And, indeed, such

apprenticeship ends almost always with the apprentice passing a test, which, if passed,

gives rise to celebration.

Just over one third of the sample entrepreneurs with apprentices would normally con-

clude a written apprenticeship contract. The practice appeared to be far more common,

however, in radio repair shops and cyber cafés (around 60 per cent) than, for example, with

women’s dressmakers (31 per cent; see Table 15) or with masons, carpenters and leather

workers (18 per cent). Written contract or not, a majority (60 per cent) of all the sample en-

trepreneurs with apprentices charged a sum of money for having them on board. Appren-

ticeship fees were most common in the case of two activities, mainly carried out by women,

namely dressmaking (81 per cent; see table below) and hairdressing (75 per cent). They were

relatively uncommon in the case of construction trades (20 per cent).

Table 15. Share of women’s dressmakers with apprentices who charge apprenticeship

fees, or not, by whether they conclude apprenticeship contracts, or not

Contract No contract Total

Payment 87 79 81

No payment 13 21 19

Total 31 69 100

Asked about criteria for setting their fees, one third of the entrepreneurs concerned

mentioned the duration of the apprenticeship. The earlier finding that duration was often a

function of progress made in learning, suggests that apprenticeship fees may vary even

within enterprises. Ability to pay and family links were also cited as criteria, as were, to a

lesser extent, demand for apprenticeship and what other enterprises charged.

For the sample as a whole, average fees were FCFA 111,000 (US$ 144) to cover the

full duration of an apprenticeship. Averages varied considerably, however, by activity,

from FCFA 47,000 (US$ 61) in the case of hairdressers, and FCFA 70,000 (US$ 91) for ad-

ministrative and internet services, to FCFA 172,000 (US$ 223) in the case of metal work-

ers, and FCFA 182,000 (US$ 236) for radio and related electrical repair. The highest fee

reported for the present sample was FCFA 300,000 (US$ 391)19. Apprenticeship fees were

generally paid in monthly instalments of between FCFA 5,000 and FCFA 20,000. Besides

fees, “presents”, such as a bottle of whiskey, were expected upon admitting and “freeing”

an apprentice, by one in three of the entrepreneurs concerned.

42


19 Restaurants, where apprentices are uncommon, and where fees appeared to be very low (at less than US$ 15)excluded.

In talking about apprenticeship fees, it is important to recognise that other forms of

training may well be more expensive, as has been illustrated above, and, secondly, that ap-

prentices, habitually, take part in production, for which, more often than not, they are com-

pensated, in cash or in kind. In the case of this sample of enterprises, between one-third and

one half of the apprentices received more or less regular payments, notably in the form of

pocket money, and the same proportion was provided free meals by their masters or mis-

tresses. Smaller numbers of apprentices were given lodging free of charge, or other

in-kind-payments such as tools, clothing, or haircuts.

Apprentices learn, in most cases, by observing their bosses, and then by trying. Dem-

onstrations are a principal source of learning for roughly one in five apprentices. At best

one in ten would learn by asking questions. One in three of the apprentices in cyber cafés

was said to learn by doing, and another third by attending courses outside the enterprise.

Outside courses were also a source of learning for apprentices repairing radios and refriger-

ators (17 and 12 per cent, respectively) but much less so for apprentices in other trades.

Finally, in the matter of apprenticeship, the entrepreneurs concerned were asked what

major problems they might have (or have had) with their apprentices. Almost one in four

(23 per cent) could not think of any problems worth mentioning. Less than half of all re-

spondents (42 per cent) mentioned (mis)behaviour, with relatively high scores for car me-

chanics (64 per cent), men’s tailors (53 per cent) and metal workers (52 per cent). Only

seven per cent of respondents complained about an inadequate level of education of their

apprentices, with operators of cyber cafés (at 22 per cent) being at least twice as concerned

as entrepreneurs in any other category. Absenteeism was mentioned as a major problem by

13 per cent of respondents.

43


Concluding remarks

The findings of this survey of skills and work in what are, also locally, called informal

sector enterprises, should not, of course, be interpreted as universally valid. The methodol-

ogy underlying surveys of this kind, and furthermore the fact that Yaoundé is Yaoundé, rule

against any attempt at generalisation. That being said, it may be found of interest to have re-

sults validating general hypotheses, or confirming what has been found in comparable, ear-

lier research studies.

Here, apparently, is one more survey contradicting the sometimes hasty, probably un-

informed, and, consequently erroneous judgements of commentators who consider the in-

formal sector of cities such as Yaoundé, mainly a marginal, a transient phenomenon, a

modern day nuisance, really, made up particularly of people uninterested in being

law-abiding citizens. While it should be clearly understood that not everything is well at the

informal end of the economic spectrum, not all people who worked in the micro-enterprises

visited and interviewed were poor and miserable; not all of them would rather be some-

where else; not all were barely educated. Nor, if the entrepreneurs in the sample employed

others, for instance as apprentices, were conditions of such employment necessarily below

standards of what the ILO might call decent work. Informal sector enterprises such as in the

present sample are not by definition short-lived; indeed, while many were recent start-ups,

others had been within a family for generations. Nor were enterprises always unregistered, or

necessarily passed over by fiscal authorities.

Here again is a survey showing that the micro-enterprises in question add up to a

colourful lot of diverse undertakings by people whose labour is not demanded by any em-

ployer of the formal variety. Indeed, it is usually for lacking alternatives that a large major-

ity of those in the Yaoundé labour force, men and women, decide to seek employment and

income in these small, household-based, and unincorporated firms. However, what exactly

they will do and when, appears an outcome of many factors. Occupation choice and career

path clearly depend on gender, and are also related to family background, education level, and

the nature and extent of pre-employment vocational training and/or apprenticeship that people

may, or may not, have been involved in.

As concerns education and training, it appeared that sample entrepreneurs were, on

the whole, and relatively speaking, well educated. Indeed, they appeared to have had more

years in school than their apprentices and others they employed. That it was more likely for

one who had stayed in school longer than for others, to have become an owner/mi-

cro-entrepreneur seems plausible, if hard to prove. Analysis does suggest, however, that

relatively more successful entrepreneurs had had, on average, a few more years of educa-

45


tion than their not so fortunate counterparts. Pre-employment training, that is, beyond for-

mal education, proved an unexpectedly common element in the career paths of sample

entrepreneurs. It was unexpected in view of reports concluding that government had found

it exceedingly difficult over the years to provide for training worth speaking of. In fact, sur-

vey results point at an apparently vigorous private sector response to an obvious demand

for skills training.

The survey results further confirm, without any room for doubt, that in Yaoundé, as in

other cities in West and Central Africa, those who operate a micro-enterprise have almost

always passed through an apprenticeship of the traditional sort. Moreover, most entrepre-

neurs engage apprentices in turn. A majority of entrepreneurs in the sample not only de-

clared their apprenticeship to be their most useful learning experience, they also wanted

their children to be apprentices. It appears, once more, that traditional apprenticeship is, in

fact, for very large numbers, the main source of the skills that people subsequently use to

make ends meet. It is a training system in its own right, comprehensive, self-regulating,

self-financing, and catering both to young men and women, albeit not to the same extent. As

was the case in earlier surveys, no evidence was found to suggest that such apprenticeship

was a mere cover for the exploitation of children; in fact almost all apprentices “captured” in

this survey were 18 years of age or older.

While survey results do not include any particular evidence of the sort, traditional ap-

prenticeship does, no doubt, suffer from all kinds of shortcomings, as do, most probably, all

other forms of training available to Yaoundé school leavers. And the quality of basic educa-

tion in Cameroon is also said, by all, to leave much to be desired. There is an obvious chal-

lenge, therefore, in addition to getting the education system fully back on track and going,

in addressing and improving ways and means of developing useful skills for large numbers

of people who are, or who will be, working in informal sector micro-enterprises. Additional

competence could mean additional output and income per worker, or producing a better

product, or working more safely, or doing new things. Survey results leave no doubt that

people working in these enterprises were fully aware of the importance of skills, and many

respondents were of the view that they would benefit from additional training. In the cir-

cumstances, one might suggest that the country’s current training policies, and the use to be

made of the meagre public resources available for training, be refocused, so that labour

market realities are better reflected and existing training capacity further strengthened.

Rather than frustrating private training providers and/or insisting that traditional appren-

ticeship should be discouraged, if not dismantled, for not resembling more its German

counterpart, incentives and other constructive measures could go a long way in enhancing

such training capacity as the public sector is incapable of matching before long.

Complementary support, such as business advice for micro-enterprises, or additional

access to credit, or markets for their products, or whatever would remove current bottle-

necks, could further improve the performance of those whose livelihood depends on work

in the informal sector. Whatever the intervention considered, two important suggestions

deserve to be heeded, namely that women represent a significant proportion of the potential

embodied in micro-enterprises, and that most measures to come to fruition need the prior

blessings of the intended beneficiaries.

46


Annex: Methodology and organisation of work

The present report on skills and work in the informal sector of Yaoundé, is the out-

come of having conducted a stratified area sample survey of small and micro-enterprises.

The survey covered twelve, relatively common, but distinct economic activities, known, a

priori, to require a certain degree of technical and business skills, and to include activities

often carried out by women. The survey did not cover wholesale or retail trading activities,

which are, no doubt, numerically more important among informal sector enterprises, but,

possibly, less interesting from a skills perspective. The sample activities were defined, for

the instruction of interviewers, as follows:

� Women’s dressmakers: making women’s dresses is their principal activity, even

if other items are also produced; note that they are not necessarily women only;

� Men’s tailors: making men’s clothing is their principal activity, even if other items

are produced; note that they are not necessarily men only;

� Women’s hairdressers: included are women and men exercising the activity in a

shop, a market stall, or in the open air; those who work at home, without a clear out-

side sign informing about the activity are not to be included (the same holds for

other sample activities);

� Wood workers: those whose principal activity is the production of furniture or

other objects made of wood, except sculptures and musical instruments; as long as

it is not their principal activity, woodworkers working as carpenters (e.g. making

windows or doors) may also be included;

� Car mechanics: people who operate garages, and whose principal activity con-

sists of repairing car engines; not included, therefore, are those who are, primarily,

panel beaters, tire repair people, or specialists in electrical repairs, and those who

repair motorcycles; note that car mechanics who share land, facilities and/or cli-

ents with other, often independent specialists, should not be excluded for that rea-

son;

� Construction: masons, carpenters, and others, whose principal activity consists

of building all or part of a house, or other structure, irrespective of the material

used, but not those who do the secondary jobs, like plumbers or painters;

� Radio (and related electrical) repair: those who repair radios, television sets,

video recorders, and the like, but not refrigerators, air conditioners and ventilators;

� Leather workers: those who produce and repair leather products;

47


� Restaurants: those who prepare meals for consumption on the premises, be these

permanent structures or not, but excluding those who sell pastries or other “take

away” food;

� Administrative services and “cyber cafés”: those whose business consists of

providing secretarial, administrative, and internet services; not included are those

who only offer telephone services;

� Refrigeration repair: those whose principal activity is repairing refrigerators, air

conditioners and ventilators;

Structured interviews were conducted, in December, 2000, with a total of 682 entre-

preneurs, 25 per cent of whom were women. The overall size of the sample is an outcome,

first, of the resources available for the work, and, then, of the decision to interview, at least,

50 entrepreneurs for each of the twelve selected activities. This number is believed to en-

sure that responses are representative for all in the activity, and it furthermore allows one to

observe differences among operators of the same trade. The size of the enterprises to be in-

terviewed was not decided on in advance, since it was believed, and borne out by subse-

quent experience, that relatively few establishments would have more than five workers,

including the entrepreneur.

In the absence of an up-to-date, and otherwise adequate sampling frame for small or

micro-enterprises, it was decided, to draw an area sample, and, in order to ensure random

selection at the sub-sample level, to rely on the frame used in a recently conducted house-

hold budget survey. More precisely, that survey had subdivided, on an updated, detailed

map, the city into “islands”, that is, blocks, or parcels of urban land surrounded by streets or

paths or features of nature such as rivers or mountains. From the total of 777 islands, 126

had been drawn for the household budget survey.

From the latter, 50 were drawn for the present survey, 46 of them at random, and four

by direct choice in order to capture special cases, notably masons and carpenters who work

at changing locations. By walking around them, a list was then made with the number and

precise location of candidate enterprises on each of the selected islands. It was thus estab-

lished that certain activities were better represented than others, and it was decided to inter-

view one in two of the women’s dressmakers, hairdressers, and woodworkers listed, and all

of the others. Where the number of 50 enterprises per activity was not reached in this man-

ner, additional islands were drawn at random for the more common trades. They were oth-

erwise selected for the three activities least widespread, namely construction trades (at the

city limits), and the repair of refrigerators and radios (along certain main avenues).

48


Previously published in the Occasional Papers series:

� October 2001; WORKING BUT NOT WELL: Notes on the nature and extent of

employment problems in South Africa, by Fred Fluitman.

� November 2001; TRAINING FOR WORK IN THE INFORMAL SECTOR: New

evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa, by Hans Christian Haan.

49


skillsyd

Documents

centre concerning

outcome of work

joseph jean mariemomo

various roles

team effort

various people

italy telephone

various questions