What are the main features of the informal economy in Poland?
It is difficult to obtain any reliable figures. According to official figures, the informal economy represents 15% of GDP. But the percentage is in fact much higher than that. And it is not migrants but Polish citizens themselves who form the majority of the informal workforce. Some 2 million Poles and 150,000 migrants work in the informal economy. It is a fast-growing trend that is set to provoke serious problems. It mainly involves atypical jobs done by self-employed workers who are not covered by any kind of employment contract or collective agreement. There is only a contract between two companies who are in fact two individuals. Nowadays, owing to the high unemployment rate (almost 20%), most of those working in the informal economy are officially registered unemployed. In the past, workers often combined two jobs, formal and informal. But it is still difficult to obtain any precise figures in this area. These employers often pay the lowest possible official wages, so as to pay a
