Unveiling the Structural Character of Informal Work: New Labour Subject and Financial Exploitation Beyond the Promise of Transition

ABSTRACT Informal work is a defining aspect of the contemporary global labour landscape, not only in the Global South but also notably in the Global North. The predominant approach to informality in international labour and economic law frequently depicts it as a market failure, suggesting its effective rectification through labour market policies aimed at transitioning informal workers into the formal sector—the ‘transitional approach’. This article challenges this approach. The main argument contends that by characterising informality as exceptional, the transitional approach fails to recognise its integral role in the shaping of contemporary capitalism. Furthermore, this characterisation perpetuates a paradigm of full employment, which relies on a notion of formal labour markets as internally coherent, embedded in colonial narratives surrounding development discourse. Drawing from the case of the ‘Workers of the Popular Economy’ (Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Economía Popular) in Argentina, the article posits that the structural character of informality is underscored by: (i) the emergence of a new labour subject not captured by traditional labour law (socio-political argument) and (ii) a shift in the labour–capital relationship, increasingly mediated by debt rather than solely by wages (economic argument).