Domestic workers, the eternal dilemma: how to regularize them? On the one hand i category contracts, as well as being sometimes too expensive for the employer, they are considered not very agile for a service – that of house cleaning – which with the crisis has become increasingly occasional. On the other i work vouchers are perhaps too agile, so much so that this formula which regulates occasional services (not attributable to employment contracts since they are carried out occasionally) concerned over one million workers last year, against just 25.000 in the 2008. "It is the new frontier of precariousness", warned the president of INPS himself, Tito Boeri.
So here comes the option of the digital economy to the rescue of the rampant "black": for several months already it has focused heavily on Italy, where according to Censis data 55% of housekeepers, carers and babysitters are irregular (an army of nearly a million workers), the German startup Helpling, a platform for online search and booking of 100% regular cleaners. “All payments are traceable – explains the country manager Alberto Cartasegna – as made by credit card or Paypal. We also issue customers with a summary of all the operations carried out, with which they can issue an invoice and pay VAT". The form chosen by the workers who choose Helpling as an intermediary is in fact that of self-employment, with a VAT number. On their performance – which has the fixed rate of 11,90 per hour for recurring jobs and 13,90 per hour for occasional jobs – a commission of 15 and 30% respectively is applied. The rest ends up in the pocket of those who work, who therefore have a gross income of around 10 euros for an hour of work.
The consumer, for his part, spends a little on the service (on average, in a city like Rome, domestic services cost between 8 and 10 euros an hour) but he has no no bureaucracy to deal with, can easily find and contact the worker via the app, and is also insured by Helpling for damages. “We only insure damages because for the rest the worker is liable personally, as a self-employed worker”, specifies Cartasegna. “Using an app like Helpling to find clients and manage your jobs is the solution that fills the agenda of cleaner 2.0 subverting mono-clients, offering decision-making freedom and diversified and therefore safer turnover. The customer, the ordinary man or woman who finds his trusted maid through Helpling, closes the circle and gets rid of the weight and costs of running the house definitively”.
The novelty could revolutionize a sector that in Italy is anything but marginal: again according to Censis, over two million families in Italy rely on a domestic worker, spending 19,3 billion euros a year. And if it is true that more than half do it illegally, it must also be said that we are not the only ones: Germany and France are still at 40 and 45%, but for example in Spain the maid service is irregular at 70 % of cases, according to official statistics. The majority of those who opt for black do so unconsciously with respect to the risks, which are heavier than one might think: in Italy, for example, a fine of 5.000 euros is incurred for each illegally employed worker and the imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years pursuant to art. 22, paragraph 12 of Legislative Decree 286/98.
“Over 70% of our clients (who had a maid) report having used an illegal maid before Helpling, only 3% used vouchers, 15% the maid/carer contract”, reveals Cartasegna. Helpling's is only the latest example of what is sometimes erroneously called the sharing economy, but which would be more correct to call the Gig economy. It's the economy of on-demand work: a recent McKinsey study shows that by 2025 online platforms that match supply and demand for talent could represent an increase in world GDP of almost 3.000 billion dollars.
