Title: Informal Employment and Job Quality in Urban Nigeria: The Role of Human Resource Practices
Authors: Favour Folushade Olaleye & Merith Ifeoma Anaba
Volume: 9
Issue: 12
Pages: 165-179
Publication Date: 2025/12/28
Abstract:
Informal employment remains the dominant form of work in urban labor markets across developing economies, yet its implications for job quality are often treated as structurally predetermined. This study examines the role of human resource practices in shaping job quality outcomes within Nigeria's urban informal economy. Drawing on institutional theory, the decent work framework, and complementary perspectives from human resource management, the study adopts a quantitative cross-sectional design using survey data collected from 400 informal workers across major Nigerian cities. Human resource practices are operationalized across recruitment, training and skill development, compensation, supervision, and perceived job security, while job quality is measured as a multidimensional construct encompassing earnings adequacy, working conditions, job satisfaction, employment stability, and worker well-being. The results of multivariate regression analysis reveal that human resource practices significantly influence job quality outcomes. Perceived job security and compensation practices emerge as the strongest predictors of job quality, followed by training and supervision, while recruitment practices exert a smaller but statistically significant effect. These findings demonstrate substantial heterogeneity in job quality within informal employment and challenge the view that informality is inherently associated with poor-quality work. The study contributes to human resource management and employment relations literature by extending HR analysis to informal contexts and offers policy-relevant insights for improving job quality and advancing decent work in developing economies.