zeidmaan wrote:
I did my share of illegal work here in Austria and I can tell you that its almost exclusively shitty jobs for half of what legal workers get for the same job. Also most Austrians wouldnt even work those jobs.
Besides most people that hired me illegally wouldn't be able to run their companies with all legal work force.
One of my good friends uncle has a company that does construction work, mostly renovating apartment buildings. Fairly small with about 40-50 workers. The thing is, to get a contract he needs to compete with bunch of huge construction companies with 2000+ workers. Those big companies already have an edge over him. They have good contacts, lawyers that get all the permits much faster, better architects etc. Only field where he can compete is the price.
And here comes a problem. The big company, that he is competing against, is going to buy the materials straight from the manufacturer and in bulk - lets say 2 million € worth of - and this way it is going to get it much cheaper. My mates uncle will have to buy in small quantities from a retailer and he is going to pay at least 1/3 more than the big company. To compensate for this he needs to save money somewhere else. So what he does is hire half of the workforce legally and these are for example architects, engineers, electritians etc. Other half is illegal and its mostly for more physically demanding jobs. He pays them half as much and he doesnt pay the additional costs like healthcare, pension fond, tax etc.
And even with cutting corners he is barely staying afloat. If someone from the government came today and told him that he must stop hireing illegals ho would shut the company down right away and 20-30 Austrians will be left unemployed.
Government knows this and thats why certain companies in certain fields are allowed (unofficially) to hire illegals.
But there are ways to combat that. The city where I live has done some things in the past to change that mindset. They refer to it as "living wage", and give extra points to contractors that use legal labor and pay living wages. That means because they do, even if their bid comes in a bit higher in costs, they can still get the contract. This doesn't always work for private contracts, but it's a start.
In fact, I've got a contractor installing new shingles on my roof as we speak. Not one illegal among them, and he managed to provide me with the best quote on price.