Romania ranks first in the European Union in terms of the payment of "cash in hand" salaries, after almost a quarter of Romanians stated they have received untaxed money from their employers, reveals a report on informal employment from the Orga

The share of Romanians who receive untaxed wages is almost five times higher than the European average, which stands at 5%. In addition, the share of Romanians who did not know or refused to answer the question as to whether their employers used such a payment method stands at 31%, which is also the highest percentage of respondents in EU countries.

Next in the same ranking are Latvians, 17% of whom admit that they receive untaxed wages, Belgians, 14%, Lithuanians and Poles, 11% each. At the other end of the spectrum are employees in Malta, UK, Luxembourg and France, where only 1% of each country stated that they received untaxed money from their employers.

The OECD report reveals that Romania also ranks among the top countries in terms of informal employment, close to Bulgaria.

There is a difference between black market employment, which concerns people who work without contracts or documents, and informal employment, where people are employed based on a contract, but do not benefit from the entire compensation guaranteed by such a contract.

In Romania, informal employment occurs in various forms, such as subsistence farming, employees that do not file tax returns on their incomes, employers that do no register employees, workers without contract, tax evasion and evasion of social security contributions by both employees and employers, the declaration of lower incomes and fake independent contractors, the report reveals. "The problem with informal employment is that it does not occur in major companies but in small companies with up to 50 employees, of which there are a significant n