Underemployment vs. informality

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Until quite recently, every smart office block in Sao Paulo used to employ an "ascensorista" - a person whose sole job was to ride up and down in the lifts all day, pushing buttons that the occupants could easily have pressed for themselves.

Likewise, automatic photo-booths on the city's streets are operated by a person who puts in the money for you and checks that your passport pictures are fully dry before dividing them with scissors and putting them into a small envelope. Some would call this ‘underemployment.’

But while these ‘underemployed’ might not be driving Brazil’s growth, the BBC tells us that they are at least making more of a contribution then Brazil’s increasing informality and corruption. More discussion over at CIPE.


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