Filenews 28 December 2021 - by Adamos Adamou
A significant decrease is recorded in the rate of undeclared work as a result of the tightening of the legislation for some years, which provides for the imposition of high administrative fines, as well as the official operation this year of the Single Inspectors' Service.
This emerges from what was said in a recent meeting that the social partners had with the Directorate of the Ministry of Labour, in the context of a meeting of the technical committee provided for in the legislation which established the Single Inspectors' Office to supervise the observance of 30 labour laws. From the data presented at a meeting of the technical committee, the rate of undeclared work, based on the inspections carried out in recent years, has been reduced from 14.5% in 2018 to 12.6% in 2019 and 9.76% in 2020. This year the figure was further reduced to 7.6% based on the data presented for the first quarter. As is well known, the Inspection Service of the Ministry of Labour has been operating since the end of 2017 with European funding and with the power to impose heavy administrative fines for undeclared work, while from this year and with the approval of the relevant legislation, the supervision of 30 legislations by the Service began, for several of which there is also the possibility of imposing administrative fines.
Based on the information received by the social partners in 2018, more than 6,000 inspections for undeclared work were carried out, which increased to 7,603 in 2019. In 2020, due to the pandemic, inspections were limited to 3,000 while in the first quarter of 21 they reached 2,000.
The reduction of undeclared work beyond inspections was led by the imposition of heavy fines in cases where undeclared employees are identified.
Since 2017, in case of detection of an undeclared person in the Social Insurance Fund, an administrative fine of €500 is issued multiplied by the months that the violation of the law is confirmed. On the basis of the above, in 2018, administrative fines of €1.3 million were imposed. this has risen to around €2.3 million. in 2019. Administrative fines in 2020 due to restrictions set due to the pandemic were limited to €1.3 million. while the first quarter this year is estimated at €600,000 approximately.
It is noted that the strategic goal of the Ministry of Labour is that by 2027 the rate of undeclared work will be reduced to 5%, through a volume of inspections of 10,000 per year. In this direction, in addition to the inspections, it is estimated that the electronic system "Ergani", which came into operation in September this year, will also help, in which new hires are now exclusively and compulsorily made.
