Source: Jornal do Commercio - PE, 28/06/2009

Informality. For some, the word is a euphemism for illegality and clandestinity. For others, a serious matter of necessity. Consensus on only one point. Everyone comes out at a loss by increasing or maintaining high rates of informal work. The worker loses himself, helpless by Social Security, without access to credit and with a lesser capacity for business innovation and qualification - because he is also on the margins of public technical and professional assistance policies. And the country loses, whose economic and business development is slowed down. A study by the McKinsey consultancy, for example, shows that a 20% reduction in informality rates would cause a 1,5% increase in the growth of the national economy.

The coordinator of the Economics course at Faculdade Boa Viagem and consultant to Datamétrica, Alexandre Jatobá, explains that since informal workers do not collect taxes, they have a greater capacity to maneuver prices than those who correctly pay their charges. Since they do not need to include the cost of taxes on goods, they can sell them cheaper than the market. And since they cannot keep up with this pace, formalized companies end up taking more time to develop, that is, forming a solid customer base, having resources available for business innovation and hiring more people. In short, it is more difficult to grow for those who walk the line.

In addition, the federal revenue ceases to add representative values. Money that, in theory, is invested in actions that aim to reduce social inequalities. To give you an idea, if the 11,1 million informal workers pass to the other side as Individual Microentrepreneurs, the Social Security fund would receive an annual increase of at least R $ 55,5 million, thus helping in the eternal search for the social security surplus. Not to mention the indirect increase in federal and state collections. As they would be formalized, businesses would need to issue invoices when purchasing inputs or when contracting services. Such an attitude would help the Revenue to map economic relations and thus combat tax evasion more effectively.

Another positive impact is the generation of jobs and income and the increase in bank transactions from the release of more loans with higher added value. Today, an informal worker can only hire microcredit, which is used more to maintain positive cash flow - what to change in kids is to ensure the balance of expenses and revenues of the small business. Higher values, which would be used in investments in the company (purchase of machines, structural reforms, for example) are far from informal, due to the lack of guarantees necessary to release such financing.

It is from these achievements that we will be able to watch the money circulate in greater quantity in cities and states, thanks to the possibility of growth of local entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial musculature of different regions and, consequently, to witness an increase in formal job opportunities. In an economic environment where formality is preponderant - and not as it is today, when the informal economy accounts for more than 40% of national income -, instead of waiting for the cake to grow and then sharing it, as at the time of the economic miracle of the XNUMXs. lead of the dictatorship, people could taste it while it gets bigger.

Reports prepared by the International Labor Organization (ILO) also account for the negative contributions of informality in labor relations. Despite being responsible for employing a good part of the peripheral population and that has to face countless problems in search of jobs (poor people, with low education and qualifications), informal companies end up helping to perpetuate bad working conditions. “What predominates in the informal economy are people with low income and low qualification, working in several low-productivity activities. And the low level of education of a country's labor force prevents foreign investment ”, points out the professor of Economics at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Tarcísio Patrício. According to the latest National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), 51% of Brazilian workers are informal.