Due to the fact that salaries in the construction industry are paid in envelopes, the country's budget in 2024 did not receive 4.2 billion lei, - Veaceslav Ioniță
As the expert of IDIS Viitorul noted, the construction industry, which is growing every year, faces serious personnel problems, which undermine the safety and sustainability of the industry, and also damage the state budget. According to the expert, in the first quarter of 2025, the volume of construction works amounted to almost 21 billion lei, including 5.6 billion lei in Chisinau municipality, where the market value of the built housing amounted to 25.5 billion lei. For comparison, in 2024, the cost of construction works in Chisinau amounted to 4.5 billion lei, and the market value of new housing - 14.1 billion lei. This market is growing, but there is a large gap between the volume of construction in Chisinau and in the country's regions. Thus, over the past 5 years, about 73% of the work was carried out in Chisinau. The volume of construction work in the capital per capita is 25.7 thousand lei, the next in terms of these indicators is Straseni - 8.3 thousand lei. In general, according to Veaceslav Ionita, investments and construction volumes in most regions of the country are 25 times less than in Chisinau. At the same time, the main problem of the construction industry is that 60% of the industry's workers are employed in the informal sector. Thus, in 2024, 64 thousand people were employed in construction, of which 24.8 thousand were hired, and 39.2 thousand were illegal. Herewith, every year 40% of workers in the construction industry are newcomers. "This fact indicates a lack of professional growth in this industry, although mainly young people come here to work. If 50% of people work officially in cities and 50% unofficially, then in rural areas only 26.4% are officially employed, and the remaining 73.6% do not have health and social insurance. Salaries in the construction industry are about 15% lower than the average salary in the economy, but a significant part of those who work in the construction industry receive their salaries in an envelope. The real salary that an officially employed person receives is 15-20% higher than the average in the economy,” the expert noted. Due to the non-payment of social security and health insurance contributions, as well as other taxes and fees by some workers in the construction industry, the national public budget did not receive 4.2 billion lei in 2024, 3.6 billion euros in 2023, and 3.2 billion lei in 2022. "The construction industry, where there is excessive annual staff turnover, where it is impossible to guarantee the quality of construction work, must be brought out of the shadow economy into the legal zone. With such trends, it is impossible to develop the industry and train specialists," concluded Veaceslav Ionita. He also supported the idea of trade unions and employers in the industry, who proposed, by analogy with Romania, to create an institution called "Social House of the Builder". Through this structure, during periods of unemployment, an employee in the industry would receive a significant part of the salary that he earned during the period of employment.// 18.07.2025 — InfoMarket.
