Spain’s shadow economy flourishes in downturn

MADRID, Feb 9 (AFP): About 40 men pace around on a busy Madrid square to keep warm as they wait to be hired for the day at building sites across the Spanish capital.
Every day at 6:00 am Carlos Gonzalez, who moved to Spain from Peru in 2004, arrives at the Plaza Eliptica in southwestern Madrid, a meeting place for electricians, plumbers and other construction workers looking for work in Spain's underground economy.
"Many of us had contracts at good companies but now this is all that is left for us," said the 35-year-old, who has struggled to find stable work since Spain's decade-long property bubble burst in 2008.
A van pulls up and several job seekers surround it. After a brief negotiation two men board the vehicle leaving the other candidates behind."We have to survive because we have children and apartments to pay," Gonzalez said.
Spain's shadow economy-where cash is king, there are no contracts and the taxman is cut out of the equation-is flourishing amid an economic downturn that has pushed the jobless rate to 26 per cent.
Economists estimate Spain's underground economy equals 25 per cent of the country's gross domestic product.