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The IG Bau trade union is calling for at least 16,000 new customs inspectors to combat undeclared work and ensure compliance with the minimum wage.
This would correspond to a doubling of the forces.
"The higher statutory minimum wage alone, which has been €12 an hour since last October, would have to be controlled much more intensively," said the deputy federal chairman of IG Bau, Harald Schaum, to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Schaum expects a significant increase in undeclared work and illegal employment in 2023.
»There is still a lot to do in construction alone.
The growing cost and competitive pressure will also drive criminal activity,” he said.
"Without controls - no legal work, no legal pay," said the vice chief.
If the federal government does not increase the control staff now, it will open the floodgates to abuse.
Undeclared work on construction sites increases by around a fifth
In the first half of 2022, over 9,000 criminal proceedings were initiated for illegal employment in construction.
That was around a fifth more than in the same period last year, when it was 7430.
“The violations that have been uncovered are just the tip of the iceberg,” said IG Bau board member Carsten Burckhardt.
“More and more often we are dealing with organized crime structures here.” Undeclared work and illegal employment are part of everyday life in construction, according to Burckhardt: Entire constructs of bogus subcontractors are being set up to cover up illegal employment.
In the first half of the year, a good eleven percent of the 82,000 investigations across all sectors related to illegal employment, social fraud and minimum wage violations on construction sites, according to IG Bau.
The determined amount of damage is around 161 million euros.
hey/AFP