This paper attempts to explore the current nature of rural labor in Albania into formal and informal sectors, and also to trace its transformation through time in period of transition from socialist economy to market economy.Specifically, the paper examines how the inherited structure of the employment, “fixity” of rural labor, the great percentage of people that live in countryside, old and new patterns of rural employment affect the self-employment on agricultural sector. We use Labor Force Survey and Living Standard Measurement Survey data for the 1990-2009 period, covering two decades of transformation in Albania. Based on this data, the paper explores the distribution of formal versus informal employment on agricultural sector; in what way the self-employment effects in unemployment rate; and shows the way that self-employment in agriculture is the source of informal rural labor.