One million “irregular” workers , illegal economy worth 18,6% GDP

One million workers in Spain do not have a regular contract with an underground economy worth at least 18,6% of the country’s GDP which mostly concerns entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized companies, according to a study by La Caixa released yesterday and based on the annual report drafted by Austrian Professor Friederich Schneider on the illegal economy in Europe.
Tax evasion was estimated at 60 billion euros. Though still hard to quantify, estimates on Spain’s underground economy are increasingly accurate.
“In a country like Spain, where 6 million are unemployed, if social protests have not exploded yet it is mostly due to the existing underground economy”, Antoni Garrell of the Fondacio Gremi de Frabricants was quoted as saying yesterday by La Vanguardia newspaper.