Zhytomyr (63% compared to 60% in 2015), Luhansk (57.8% compared to 55.9% in
2015), Sumy (53.9% vs. 51.8% in 2015), Cherkasy (60.3% compared to 52.2% in
2015), Chernihiv region (46.9% vs. 37% in 2015). In other areas, in 2016 there was a
positive dynamics, but overall this did not change the situation altogether.
The result of dissatisfaction and a certain manifestation of the vertical conflict
between the ruling circles and the general population is the presence of informal
employment, which is characterized by: the absence of the fact of official registration
of activities, and consequently the lack of legal or social protection on the part of trade
unions and the state; low level of labor productivity, use of obsolete and harmful
production technologies; low income of employees; predominance of self-
employment; impossibility of output of producers to organized markets; Refusal to
lend for business development due to lack of official registration.
Comparing the statistics of informal employment in the first years of Ukrainian
independence (the first half of the 1990s) and the figures of the last decade, it is
necessary to recognize the significant deterioration of these indicators: the share of
employed in the informal sector in relation to the total number employed from 2-5% at
the beginning of the XXI century, crossed the 10 per cent barrier, and now it is almost
25%. The dynamics of the level of informal employment during the last decade is
presented in Fig. 8
Figure 8. Dynamics of the share of informally employed population of Ukraine
during 2006-2016, %.
Source: [33]
Among the main causes of the spread of informal employment is called the
population [33]: high load on the wage fund; high taxes, compulsory payments to the
budget and contributions to various funds that lead to business shadowing; low living
standards of the population, which leads to the development of hidden types of
economic activity; the lack of official employment opportunities (lack of new jobs), as
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