Introduction:

Most of the workforce in Latin-America is integrated by workers in the informal economy, however, few studies have been carried out to explore those job psychosocial factors and psychological consequences occurring in these workers.

Objective.

To show preliminary results of exploring the psychosocial factors of work and their relationship to negative and positive psychological effects, in a sample of informal workers.

Methodology:

Through a quanti-qualitative approach, positive and negative psychosocial job factors were explored as well as their relationship with mental health, job stress, job satisfaction, burnout and engagement in a sample of informal street vendors in the City of Cuernavaca Morelos, México (N=116).

Results:

The results showed a higher frequency of positive psychosocial factors over the negatives ones (e.g gratifying tasks, sharing with others, etc., versus environmental risks, struggle with clients, etc.), and even there were few bivariate associations with the psychological effects, the multidimensional scaling analyses confirm an intrinsically motivating work component that is linked to positive effects (e.g satisfaction, engagement), and a negative interaction-people dimension which was more closely linked to negative effects (e.g mental health symptoms, burnout) (S-Stress=.07731, RSQ=.97006).

Discussion:

This preliminary study allowed the identification of very specific-context psychosocial factors in these informal vendors that are non-existent in traditional standardized questionnaires, also we could identify structural dimensions and relationships among variables which may contribute to the future understanding of these phenomena and its strategic consideration in solving problems and improving work conditions in this sector in Latin America.