panel a of figure addresses this question by showing that the majority of informal workers who transit to formal jobs moves into fixedterm employment in urban colombia and urban china while the opposite holds for south africa and hirkey low transition rates from informality to fixedterm contracts in hirkey and south africa can be at least partly explained by the relatively restrictive legislation on fixedterm employment in the former and the very light employment protection rules applying to permanent contracts in the latter this evidence points to the potential existence of a vicious cycle in countries like urban colombia where some workers may be stuck in a backandforth between informality fixedterm formal jobs and joblessness such a possibility weakens the claim that informal employment typically serves as a stepping stone towards good careers