Employment Vulnerability in Cameroon's Private Sector

This study aims to empirically investigate the distribution, sources, and consequences of employment vulnerability among private sector workers across subgroups in Cameroon. We construct an employment vulnerability index using the 2005 and 2010 Cameroon employment and informal sector surveys (EES I and II). Results indicate that, in terms of employment vulnerability, the youths, the informal sector, the female, and the other cities (except Yaoundé or Douala) dominate the adult, the formal sector, the male and the labour force in Yaoundé and Douala, respectively. The incidence of employment vulnerability among the private sector labour force increased between 2005 and 2010. Interestingly, we found that the responsiveness of private sector income to an increase in employment vulnerability witnessed a drop between 2005 and 2010 in the private sector, across gender and age group. Our results showed that people without tertiary education and those in rural areas are exposed to vulnerable employment. We found that formal sector employment correlates negatively with employment vulnerability. Employment vulnerability generally reduces monthly income in the private sector. The effect of employment vulnerability on income is gender neutral, but adults register more adverse effects of employment vulnerability on income than the youths. These results have implications for upgrading the skills, with emphasis on the rural areas, adults and female workers in the fight against employment vulnerability. The results also highlight the role that formalization of large informal sector may play in alleviating employment vulnerability