Williams, C.C. orcid.org/0000-0002-3610-1933 and Yalaman, G.Ö. (2021) The coronavirus pandemic, short-term employment support schemes and undeclared work: some lessons from Europe. Employee Relations, 43 (3). pp. 630-643. ISSN 0142-5455
Abstract
Purpose
The temporary enforced closure of businesses in response to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in governments in Europe and beyond offering short-term financial support to the businesses and workers affected. The aim of this paper is to evaluate a group of workers unable to benefit from the short-term job retention schemes and support to the self-employed made available by governments, namely those whose paid work is comprised wholly of undeclared work, and how this could be addressed.
Methodology
To identify those involved, a Eurobarometer survey of undeclared work in Europe is reported conducted in September 2019, just prior to the pandemic, and involving 27,565 face-to-face interviews in 28 European countries.
Findings
The finding is that the paid work of one in every 132 European citizens is comprised wholly of undeclared work, and these workers are concentrated in non-essential businesses and activities severely affected by the lockdown. These workers whose paid work is comprised wholly of undeclared work are significantly more likely to be widowed or divorced/separated, living in households with three or more adults, without children, and most of the time have financial difficulties in making ends meet.
Practical implications
Given that businesses and workers in the undeclared economy are largely unable to work under lockdown, it is argued that providing access to short-term financial support, through a regularisation initiative based on voluntary disclosure, would not only provide the income support these workers need but also bring them out of the shadows and put them on the radar of the state authorities, thus transforming undeclared work into declared work.
Originality/value
This paper shows how in the current or repeat lockdowns, the short-term financial support made available by governments can be used to transform undeclared work into declared work.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 Emerald Publishing Ltd. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Employee Relations. This version is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. |
Keywords: | coronavirus; COVID-19; informal economy; undeclared work; worker protection; public policy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Aug 2020 09:19 |
Last Modified: | 15 Feb 2022 13:08 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Emerald |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1108/ER-05-2020-0218 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:164514 |