The narrative, Vendola would have said, requires the crime to be punished. In Greek tragedy the scapegoat was fundamental. And thus the indication of the scandal emerges from the revolutionary magma freed by the referendum, the removal of which would signal the triumph of the popular will to go back: the abominable voucher. Of course, then there is also the school law, art. 18 (but it's a bit abused: newer and ready to drink the voucher…). And vouchers it is!
I throw it into the grotesque because such is the vulgate that we read and hear these days. Yet thanks to a good job by the INPS, precise and unpublished data are available that describe the voucher phenomenon in its concrete reality. Consult them? It costs effort, and here the effort of politics tends to end in communication, rather than in documentation. But let's see them a bit.
First question: are we talking about a phenomenon of what dimensions? The people who redeemed at least 2015 voucher in 1 are not few: 1.380.000, and it is a number that has been growing steadily since 2008. But how much does the voucher affect total labor costs? In 2015 for a figure equal to 0,232% of the cost of employee labor in the private sector. To say it's marginal is an understatement! Moreover, of the voucher recipients, 50% collected from 29 vouchers or less, therefore from €217,5 or less in terms of collection. Only 2,2% received net figures above €2250, a far cry from the €7000 ceiling that hardly anyone even touches.
The average of vouchers actually collected by workers in 2015 was 63 per capita, and it is a constant average in recent years: the number of voucher recipients increases, but not the number of vouchers that each receives. In essence, the voucher is not even remotely close to replacing the salary of an employee, except possibly in the extreme case of on-call work.
A very interesting figure is that of the days worked and the number of vouchers collected per day worked: for 30% of the audience, no more than 2 vouchers/day are collected, for an average of 35 days worked. Of this audience, 72% do not exceed 29 vouchers/year. At the opposite end there are 18% of recipients who collect more than 20 vouchers/day, for an average of 145 vouchers/year: but in this case the days are on average 4,5.
In other words, these are more qualified professional services, but absolutely occasional. As for the lower end of the table, it may also be that part of these vouchers are coverage for work that is actually illegal (such as one voucher a day for any inspections and the rest outside the envelope); but the question is: by abolishing the voucher will we bring out the black or will we also submerge what little the voucher has brought out?
The relationship between recipients and clients: 49% of clients in the period 2008-2015 bought less than 50 vouchers/year and had 3,7 recipients, and 81% of recipients worked for only one client. Of these, 62% have received less than 65 vouchers/year: certainly not a figure that denounces a substitution of subordinate work with the voucher. Is it a cover for undeclared work? The considerations made above apply. And in any case it is not the voucher that creates undeclared work: at the most it can be said that it has not brought about the re-emergence of the
black. And how could she? In any case, black is cheaper than any other form of pay, it's certainly not the fault of the voucher!
With regard to the requirement of the occasional nature of ancillary work, it must be verified that it is not constant and repetitive over time: the INPS data
say that in the period 2011-2015 the average period of entry-exit from casual work was 1 year and a half per worker. The repeat benefit rate for each individual earner is an average of 49%, much higher for retirees and much lower for
recipients of social safety nets. *Basically, you don't see a "trap" of ancillary work in which you get stuck; least of all for young people*. In the INPS report there is also an illuminating table that illustrates the relationship, region by region, between vouchers on average collected per recipient and irregular work (fig.2 page 16): the highest share of vouchers/recipient is found in the north-west , in the north-east and in Emilia, exactly where the percentage of irregular work is lowest; exactly the opposite in the southern regions.
The data on the professional condition of the recipients is very interesting: 8% are retired, 55% are active insured workers, 23% are silent (formerly insured, generally unemployed), 14% without insurance (unemployed or inactive). Of the policyholders, 30% have a subordinated contract and voucher with the same client in the same year. But of these, in three quarters of the cases the contract follows the voucher, which plays a role such as an internship; 25% have a subordinate contract and a voucher at the same time, but 80% are part timers and/or fixed-term contracts; 20% had a subordinate contract with a different employer; 10% switched to the voucher after ceasing from a different employer; 15% had only vouchers. 5% of these have unemployment benefits (data April September 2014 2015).
Basically, there is a direct relationship between ancillary work and discontinuous or part-time working careers. The average number of vouchers received is inversely proportional to the number of days worked in the year: it is in fact maximum (78) for individuals who
have never worked during the year (they only received income support allowances) and minimum (51) for individuals with days worked and paid that have practically filled up the whole year.
It should be noted that the group of recipients without a social security position, mostly young people who have not yet entered the labor market, is formed each year by a quota of more than 70% of "new entries": therefore, here too, no entrapment in ancillary work .
Ultimately, the hypothesis that the voucher tends to invade areas that were previously covered by subordinate employment relationships seems unfounded. Vice versa it has a certain importance as a source of ancillary income for retirees and employees with partial employment relationships e
discontinuous. It then has a function, even if not very relevant, of a functional probationary period for hiring. It has certainly brought out "jobs" that were previously paid informally; it is possible that it is used to provide a legal alibi to situations
of black work.
This budget, however, does not seem to indicate the need to abolish it: almost everything that allows, as seen, to legally pay
would sink into black. Ridiculous to think that it would be replaced with more formal relationships, such as fixed-term contracts or collaborations, o
perhaps with false VAT numbers. Possible, perhaps appropriate, some maintenance work. The Renzi government did the most with the obligation of traceability, which prevents the use of ex post vouchers to cover cases of undeclared work. No one would then experience the lowering of the €7.000 ceiling as a drama, which no one reaches anyway. Do we want to abolish accessory work for construction? It is enough to know that the construction sector represents 1,85% of the recipients and 2,4% of the vouchers collected: very marginal compared to the phenomenon of ancillary work.
If you want to put construction under control, perhaps it is better to look at false VAT numbers and perhaps strengthen the inspection activity with some technological support, such as the installation of video cameras on construction sites.
