Author: Gustavo Henrique Braga

Source: O Imparcial - MA - ECONOMY - 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 administration faculty and has in his curriculum a visit to four clothing stores, always as a salesman. It has changed for the better: now, it receives 50% more and had a formal contract, after two years of working in the informal sector. The legalization of the activity was accompanied by independence. The fixed salary allowed him to plan expenses and prove his income. Thanks to this, Teles managed to leave his grandmother's house, in Patos de Minas (MG), to live alone in an apartment rented under his own 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 contains the activity, it is estimated that this expansion will reach 2,5 million by December, a record, according to information from the General Register of Employed and Unemployed (Caged). Palloma Rodrigues Santos, 21, took advantage of the wave of hires and, about a month ago, left the life of free lancer to take his first job with a formal contract in 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 in 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 for postgraduate work. 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 accounts of the Severance Pay Fund (FGTS) recorded a 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 Vargas Foundation (FGV), the financial volume handled in the country without any tax return reaches R $ 578,4 billion, an amount higher than Argentina's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 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 Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is a reality that Uilson Alves Farias, 29, knows well.

The street vendor, resident of Planaltina (GO), studied until he finished elementary school. The low level of education was unable to guarantee a good position in the labor market. According to him, the only formal jobs he finds are to earn a minimum wage, little to keep his 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, ”he says. The biggest difficulty cited by Farias is the fear of inspection. On four occasions, all merchandise was 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 run out of money ”, he complains. FGV researcher Fernando Barbosa Filho warns that the boom in times of economic growth helps, but, by itself, is insufficient to take the country to the levels of informality in developed nations. "It is not possible to specify when, but without changes such as the reduction of bureaucracy in labor laws, the reduction of the underground economy has a limit", he says. Among the biggest barriers are the weight and poor distribution of the tax burden.

Bureaucracy

The director of the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition (ETCO), André Franco Montoro Filho, also points out the bureaucracy of labor legislation as one of the constraints for advancing formalization. But it recognizes the advances made in recent years. The main achievements, according to him, were the regulations of the Individual Microentrepreneur and the Simples Nacional (single tax for small companies). "A lot has improved, but the major 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 exceeds the annual revenue ceiling of R $ 2,4 million for Simples, and consequently, losing the fiscal facilities, works as an incentive to evasion. “The same is true with programs like Bolsa Família. The recipient loses the right to get formal employment. The person is tempted to work without a formal contract to maintain government assistance. The best way out would be to make this transition smoothly, ”he suggests.

But informal work is not always an option. It is also on the streets that the 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 the drought. In the Northeast, he planted beans and manioc, but when the rain didn't come, he lost everything. “I only know how to do farm things, I never studied. There, it is difficult to be hired ”, he laments. The only retirement that Teixeira imagines for himself is to return to his native land and live on what the soil produces.

PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Elidie Bifano separates the chains for formalizing jobs in Brazil on two fronts: bureaucracy in labor laws and the high cost of social security charges. “CLT is based on concepts from the 1940s. A lot has changed in the job market and left 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 final price of the products, which leaves Brazilian companies at a disadvantage when competing in the international market.