Germany: black market labour "helps" or not welfare?

Undeclared work increases the Germany's welfare, as a group of economists interviewed by Bild said. The German tabloid has opened a debate on the shadow economy after a study by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Iw of Cologne showed that 80% of domestic workers in Germany do off-the-books works. Despite the regularization, process has increased in recent years, still one in ten is occupied irregularly.

According to the economist Friedrich Schneider of Linz, this figure should not shock: "Often, part of the black economy, you are faced with activities that would be taxed on a minimum and in many areas the overall benefit to the economy greater than that of the state with taxes ", he told the magazine.

But the Unions point out the dark side of the housing sector. Robert Feiger, head of IG Bau, tells the Bild cases of extra work on "made by regularized workers  that are not counted nor paid." And the leader of the trade union Verdi Eva Welskop-Deffaa reinforces: "Undeclared work leads to poverty in old age, many of the people who work in the domestic sector are women for whom it would be an advantage to rely on contributions for social security."