extreme poverty in the short run, it can nevertheless hinder income convergence between industrialised and developing economies in the long run (Docquier et al. 2017). Data for Brunei Darussalam and Korea are not available for poverty rate. Data for Australia; China; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Malaysia; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Singapore; and Chinese Taipei are not available for both informal employment and poverty rate. The poverty headcount ratio is based on the USD 2.15 per person per Source: ILO Statistics and World Development Indicators (accessed 23 April 2025), calculated by the Consultant. COVID-19 pandemic. In these economies, the number of such individuals rose from 85,000 in 2020 to around 96,600 to 98,900 in the subsequent two years, representing a jump of about 14 individuals since 2010. When examined together with the change in informal output and self- as a sort of safety net in industrialised economies. On the other hand, the same data show the subsistence nature of informal employment in developing economies. Despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of the individuals in 2020 to around 20 percent in the subsequent two years, representing a decrease