Author: Gustavo Henrique Braga

Source: Correio Braziliense Online - 01/08/2010

Gustavo Henrique Braga
Mail Braziliense

Maycon Teles, 23, started his current job just over a week ago.
The university student works since he was 16 to pay for business school
companies and has in his curriculum pass by four clothing stores, always on
seller role. It has changed for the better: now it receives 50% more and
formal contract, after two years of work in the informal sector. The legalization of
activity was accompanied by independence. The fixed salary allowed him
plan spending and prove income. Thanks to that, Teles managed to leave the house
grandmother, in Patos de Minas (MG), to live alone in a rented apartment in the
name in Taguatinga.

"Now, I can plan for the future without depending on other people," he celebrates.
This is an increasingly common reality. The good winds of the economy allowed
an increase, in the first semester alone, of 1,47 million people in the contingent
of workers with a formal contract. Despite the increase in interest rates, which
activity, it is estimated that this expansion will reach 2,5 million by December,
a record, according to information from the General Register of Employees and Unemployed
(Caged). Palloma Rodrigues Santos, 21, took advantage of the wave of hiring and,
about a month ago, he left his life as a free lancer to take his first job
with a formal contract at the same store that hired Maycon.

She plans to save money to do a graduate degree in fashion and had to
distribute the hidden curriculum of her father, who plans to see her on the
civil service. “When I got a job in the private sector, he
understood. Now that my income has increased by 80%, I don't want to depend on my parents
to make the powders. I am already too big to leave this cost on them ”, she says.
The impact on the collection caused by people who left informality is
direct. The service time guarantee fund (FGTS) accounts registered
record balance of R $ 5,8 billion from January to June, an increase of 158,4%
compared to the same period last year.

Without declaration

However, it is too early to celebrate. According to estimates by the Getulio Foundation
Vargas (FGV), the financial volume handled in the country without any declaration
tax reaches R $ 578,4 billion, an amount higher than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
from Argentina. The underground economy in Brazil represents about 18,4% of GDP,
against an average of 10% in the 30 countries that make up the Organization for
Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD). It is a reality that Uilson
Alves Farias, 29, knows him well.

The street vendor, resident of Planaltina (GO), studied until he finished teaching
fundamental. The low level of education was unable to guarantee a good
position in the labor market. According to him, the only jobs with a formal contract
signed contract are to earn a minimum wage, little to maintain the
wife and daughter. The option found was to sell handicrafts on the streets.
“I started as a teenager 16 years ago. Since then, I have never stopped. The difficulties are
many, but I prefer it that way. On the street, I manage to earn about R $ 1 a month ”,
states. The biggest difficulty cited by Farias is the fear of inspection. In
four occasions, he had all the merchandise seized.

“There are days that I earn well, others not. Everywhere I go, I take the
products. I never stop trying to sell, except when I get sick. Then I stay
without any money ”, he complains. FGV researcher Fernando Barbosa Filho
warns that the boom in times of economic growth helps, but, by itself,
is insufficient to bring the country to the levels of informality of nations
developed. “You can't say when, but without changes like the
reducing bureaucratization of labor laws, the reduction of the underground economy has
a limit ”, he says. Among the biggest barriers are still weight and poor
distribution of the tax burden.

Bureaucracy

The director of the Brazilian Institute of Competitive Ethics (ETCO), André Franco
Montoro Filho, also points out the bureaucracy of labor legislation as one of the
ties for advancing formalization. But it recognizes the advances of the past
years. The main achievements, according to him, were the regulations of the
Individual Microentrepreneur and Simples Nacional (single tax for small
companies). “A lot has improved, but the main criticism of these programs is the
discontinuity of incentives, which condemns the company to remain small. ”

According to Montoro, the blow that the small business owner feels when he overcomes the
annual revenue of R $ 2,4 million from Simples, and consequently, lose the
fiscal facilities, acts as an incentive to evade. “The same is true with
programs like Bolsa Família. Whoever receives loses the right to get a job
formal. The person is tempted to work without a formal contract to maintain
government assistance. The best way out would be to make this transition in a
smooth ”, he suggests.

But informal work is not always an option. It is also on the streets that
cotton candy seller José Teixeira, 50, resident of Gama, earns his living.
Five years ago, he left his family in Paulo Afonso, in the backlands of Bahia, to escape
alone from drought. In the Northeast, he planted beans and manioc, but when the rain
came, lost everything. “I only know how to do the farm things, I never studied. Then, stay
difficult to be hired ”, he laments. The only retirement that Teixeira imagines
for you it is going back to your homeland and living on what the soil produces.

PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Elidie Bifano separates into two
fronts for the formalization of jobs in Brazil: the
bureaucracy in labor laws and the high cost of social security charges. "THE
CLT is based on concepts from the 1940s. A lot has changed in the labor market
work and left the legislation completely out of date in the face of the new reality. ”
Elidie also argues that the cost of charges is directly reflected in the price
end of the products, which leaves Brazilian companies at a disadvantage when
compete in the international market.