Borderlands

TIME TO READ | 4 mins

What if there is no law? The figures on informality and noncompliance with the law

by Edvaldo Moita | 27 March 2026

Picture by Darwin Boaventura on Unsplash

One of the main political agendas of any government—especially those from countries on the periphery of the world (or the so-called “Global South”)—is employment. The employment rate serves as a kind of thermometer that measures the health of a country’s labour market and economy. A high rate of unemployment triggers an alarm, as it points to a decrease in household income, a rise in poverty, and, naturally, growing difficulties in accessing consumer goods and basic services essential for dignified living conditions. Ultimately, it affects the very capacity for survival.

It is no coincidence that the current Brazilian government has been celebrating the successive falls in the unemployment rate over recent years (see here and here), especially when compared to the previous administration. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), an official government agency, reported at the end of last year an employment rate of 59% (for the trimester Sept./Oct./Nov. 2025), the highest in the historical series since 2012. This percentage corresponds to just over 103 million people. Another record was also broken last year: the lowest unemployment rate in the historical series, 5.2%, that is, nearly 5.6 million people.

Amidst these effusive figures, however, there is a statistic that should alarm jurists and socio-legal scholars alike: informality has also been operating at persistently highest levels. In 2024, a record was broken with the highest number of informally employed people since 2016 (when this specific data series was created), namely 40 million people. In relation to the number of employed individuals, this represents a rate of 38.9%, a figure that has remained historically stable regardless of the government in office. Throughout 2025, although the number slightly decreased, over 38 million people were working under conditions of informality. These data point to a phenomenon that extends beyond purely economic or social dimensions. Informality—however it is conceptually framed—fundamentally involves, as Feige (2015, p. 5) observed, “activities of individuals, households and/or firms that evade, avoid, circumvent, elude, are excluded from, or not subject to the rules and conventions of established institutions.” It therefore also reflects the level of noncompliance with legal norms. When nearly half of a country’s economically active population is engaged in activities that violate legal rules, a crucial question emerges: where is the law? How does the legal system—including its actors and organisations—operate in a context where norms are, to a high degree, pervasively and frequently violated?