Brussels, 01/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - Some 5% of workers in the 27 EU member states and Norway are engaged in undeclared work, seriously affecting public finances. This is the main finding of the new report by Dublin-based Community agency for the improvement of living and working conditions, Eurofound. The report, “Measures to tackle undeclared work in the European Union”, is based on a Eurobarometer survey conducted in 2007. It outlines policies and strategies to raise awareness of the issue, which exists to varying degrees across all member states. On Wednesday 1 July, in response to a request from the European Commission and the European Parliament, Eurofound also published a database with examples of best practice and measures that have proved to be most effective in tackling undeclared work across the EU.
The main conclusions of the report are: (1) some 5% of those surveyed had carried out undeclared work during the 12 months prior to the Eurobarometer survey; (2) almost one in five undeclared jobs is in the household services sector, which includes domestic cleaning services and child and elderly care provision; (3) across the EU, 55% of undeclared work is done for friends, family and neighbours, a further 20% is conducted on a self-employed basis for private individuals or households, while just 20% is related to undeclared waged employment. The remaining 5% is unrecorded or not known.
There are, however, wide differences between member states. The level of undeclared work is much higher in some countries, such as Denmark (18%), Latvia (15%), the Netherlands (13%), Estonia (11%) and Sweden (10%), than in others like Germany (3%), Ireland (4%) and Romania (4%). In general, the average time spent on undeclared work in southern Europe was 350 hours; in central and eastern Europe, the average was 330 hours; in continental Europe, it was 110 hours; and in the Nordic countries 60 hours.
The report is available at http://www.eurofound.europa.eu (G.B./transl.rt)