Employer perspectives on undeclared work in the service sector: impacts and policy responses

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact on service sector businesses of competitors’ undeclared work practices and the policy measures service enterprises perceive as most effective in tackling such noncompliant behaviour. The results of a survey with 1,130 service sector businesses reveals that illegal competition is the most common major obstacle for their activity and more than a half are severely affected by competitors undertaking undeclared work. However, the proportion of businesses perceiving competitors undertaking undeclared work as a major obstacle varies across different service industries, as do the policy measures that businesses view as required to tackle undeclared work. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications and calling for a shift from the dominant deterrence approach aimed at eradicating undeclared work to measures aimed at supporting the transition to declared work.

摘要

本文的目的是要评估在服务中竞争对手的非公开就业的实践和企业对政府政策应对该种违规行为的有效性的看法。本次调查有1130个服务性企业参与。结果表明非法竞争对企业商业活动造成了最普遍和最大的障碍。超过半数以上的企业受到竞争者的未公开就业的严重影响。然而，不同类型服务企业对未公开就业竞争者所造成的障碍有不同比例的看法，它们对应采取的应对政策措施的看法也不同。本文讨论了有关政策可能导致的结果后，呼吁对未公开就业的应对政策措施应从强制阻止和消除转换到支持其公开合法就业的措施。

KEYWORDS:

• Service sector
• undeclared work
• informal entrepreneurship
• informal competition
• policy measures
• South-East Europe

关键词:

• 服务业
• 未公开就业
• 非正式创业
• 非正式竞争
• 政策措施
• 东南欧

Acknowledgement

This paper is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 746358. The data gathering used in this paper was funded by the European Commission’s Framework 7 Industry-Academia Partnerships Programme (IAPP) grant number 611259 entitled ‘Out of the shadows: developing capacities and capabilities for tackling undeclared work in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR Macedonia’ (GREY). The authors would like to thank the funders for providing the financial support to enable this to be written. The usual disclaimers apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: [Grant Number 746358].