Almost 45 percent of Romanian employees work on the black market, according to a study made by the World Bank. This puts the country on the 7th place on the list of tax evasion on the work market, out of 18 states in the Central and Eastern Europe..

Half of Romanians have reduced their expenses on food to save money, while others preferred to cut their medicine expenses or reduce visits to the doctor. As the World Bank report shows, countries from Central and Eastern Europe and their work markets were the most affected by the global recession.

Romania ranks ahead of poorer countries like Moldova, Armenia or Ukraine. In other countries, like Poland and the Czech Republic, 15 percent of the workforce works without legal contracts, while, in Hungary, the ratio is of only 5 percent.

The World Bank report warns that these jobs on the black market can cause problems, because the employees won’t have any social protection in case they lose their jobs.

Alexandru Camburu