Building on biographical records of 810 Shelter users and interviews conducted with 70 homeless and vulnerable persons and 20 professionals in the area of social protection, this paper examines the employment situation of homeless people in Moldova in the context of the post-Soviet transformation. The paper maintains that most homeless people are excluded from the formal sector of the labour market. Therefore, they are engaged in various informal economic activities which help them survive and integrate them in informal support networks. Drawing on neo-Marxist and Honneth’s social recognition theories, the article argues that informal work in which homeless people are involved reduces the ability of employees to control the labour process and their autonomy to the employer. Thus, the informal labour activities further reproduce the precarious social status of the homeless person and perpetuate her social and economic vulnerability.