November 2021
11Nov

Ghana. Employers must pay pension contributions of casual workers – TDCL

Tema District Council of Labour (TDCL) has called on the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) to ensure that employers enrol their casual workers on pension schemes. Mr Emmanuel Addo-Kumi, Vice Chairman Tema District Council of Labour, told the Ghana News Agency that even though laws were covering the payment of pension for workers, some companies did not do so, especially for their casual workers. Mr Addo-Kumi said, “the casual workers are complaining, some companies don’t pay which is against the law,...

November 11, 2021
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09Nov

India’s informal economy more than halved

The Reserve Bank of India’s digital payments index also captures the spread of digital, taking into account growth in the payments infrastructure. Of the four key objectives of demonetisation, India appears to have done well on three. There has been a rise in digital transactions. Besides this, there has also been a drop in fake currencies. Counterfeit notes detected continued to fall from 3.1 lakh in FY19 to 2.9 lakh in FY20 and 2 lakh in FY21. There are also...

November 9, 2021
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02Nov

Ghana. NPRA raises alarm bells – Only 6% informal sector workers on pension scheme

Only about 600,000 out of an estimated 10.2 million workers in the informal sector are currently enrolled on at least a pension scheme, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), Mr Hayford Attah Krufi, has disclosed. He said the figure represented just six per cent of all informal sector workers who form 85 per cent of the country’s entire active labour population. “As a regulatory authority, we are worried that only six per cent of workers...

November 2, 2021
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October 2021
29Oct

The Long Shadow The Long Shadow of Informality Edited by Challenges and Policies

By Franziska Ohnsorge and Shu Yu In emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), far too many people and small enterprises operate outside the line of sight of governments—in a zone where little help is available to them in an emergency such as the COVID-19 crisis. This “informal” sector constitutes more than 70 percent of total employment in these countries and roughly one-third of output. Policy makers have long had good reasons to worry about this sector: Its participants are vulnerable even...

October 29, 2021
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25Oct

Ghana. Tier-3 Pension Scheme: Labour Minister seeks support to woo informal sector

The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has called on traditional rulers to join hands with the new Tier-3 Pension Scheme by encouraging people in the informal sector to contribute to the scheme. That, he said, would enable people in the informal sector to enjoy voluntary personal pension payments to cater for their needs at old age. He said chiefs, as opinion leaders, had the clout to influence informal sector workers to take vital decisions such as...

October 25, 2021
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21Oct

Canada. Uber drivers, gig workers pressure Ontario government for employee status

Tens of thousands of people in the province drive and deliver for apps such as Lyft, DoorDash People who drive and deliver for apps such as Uber and DoorDash are calling on the Ontario government to grant them the rights of employees. The province's minister of labour says new protections for gig workers are coming and says it's wrong for app-based workers to earn less than minimum wage. Industry sources tell CBC News they expect the Ford government will soon reveal...

October 21, 2021
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21Oct

Ghana. NPRA to target informal sector as it holds Pensions Week in Western Region

Mr Stanley Ogoe, Western Regional Director of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) has hinted that the Authority is taking steps to enlighten the informal sector workers on the benefits of having a retirement plan and becoming members of pension schemes to enable them to start their retirement plans early. He noted that workers in the informal sector so far, have shown the least interest in the 3-tier pension scheme and for that matter the NPRA was therefore encouraging workers...

October 21, 2021
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19Oct

India’s pension system needs impetus to ensure adequate retirement income: study

India needs to undertake strategic reforms to revamp the pension system so as to ensure adequate retirement income, revealed the 2021 Mercer CFA Global Pension Index survey (MCGPI) released on Tuesday. The Indian pension system ranked 40th on the overall index ranking out of 43 systems and had the lowest rank in the adequacy sub-index. The primary objective of this annual survey by Mercer Consulting, a leading global management consulting firm, is to benchmark each retirement income system using more...

October 19, 2021
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15Oct

China to encourage development of pensions, insurance for delivery sector

China's top banking and insurance regulator said it would encourage insurers to accelerate the development of commercial pension products and accident insurance for gig-economy workers such as couriers and takeout deliverymen. Read also Hong Kong government proposal for residents to convert pensions into annuities ‘absurd’ if made mandatory, labour minister says China has in recent years experienced a delivery boom powered by millions of couriers who work for companies such as Meituan Dianping and Alibaba’s Ele.me to deliver packages and meal...

October 15, 2021
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07Oct

Temporal Reframing of Recurring Savings Reduces Perceived Pain and Helps Those with Lower Financial Literacy to Save

By Stephen Shu Steve Thomas & David A. Smith While assessments of the Gig Economy vary in terms of size, growth, and heterogeneity, most studies suggest that this segment of the economy is sizeable, growing, and diverse in terms of types of work. Some concerns in the literature include both the present and future welfare of workers in the Gig Economy. More granular, temporal reframing of savings (e.g., save $5 a day versus $150 a month) has been shown to...

October 7, 2021
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