Unemployment rate falls in Romania

The unemployment rate in Romania at the end of 2023 fell below 3%.

Bogdan Matei, 30.01.2024, 14:00

The Romanian labour market is full of contradictions and paradoxes.
In the wake of the country’s entry into the European Union in 2007,
4-5 million Romanians have emigrated to the West in search of a
better life. Doctors are still leaving, although their salaries are
now comparable to those in the West. Entire teams of Romanian workers
are employed on building sites in France and Italy. In many car
washes in Germany you can hear Romanian being spoken. In the
meantime, back in Romania it has become increasingly difficult to
find a good car mechanic, plumber or electrician. People with holiday
homes in the countryside are complaining that they can’t find
anyone willing to cut their lawns or fix their fences.

The shortage
of workforce is most acutely felt in the travel and hospitality
sector, with workers being brought in from Asia to partly make up for
it: hotel room attendants from China, waiters from India, bakery
assistants from Nepal and bicycle couriers from Pakistan. Last week,
the president of Romania’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mihai
Daraban said there are over 2,000 Vietnamese nationals officially
employed in Romania and called on the governments in Bucharest and
Hanoi to guarantee the continuity of this labour flow.

Under the
circumstances, experts say, it was to be expected that the
unemployment rate would drop in Romania. At the end of 2023, this
rate was 2.93%, down 0.12% compared with the same period in 2022,
according to data from the National Agency for Employment. By
comparison, neighbouring Hungary recorded a 4.2% unemployment rate.
In December 2023, the total number of unemployed people in Romania
stood at 235,636.

Looking at the statistics, we still see big
differences according to gender, age, place of residence and
education: 67,886 unemployed persons are from the urban environment
and 167,750 from the countryside; 112,532 are women and 123,104 men;
and most of the people who are unemployed are aged between 40 and 49,
followed by those above 50, both categories accounting for over
100,000 people. At the opposite end are persons aged between 25 and
29, among whom there are fewer than 15,000 unemployed. In terms of
education, around 29% of the unemployed people are people with little
formal education, while only 4.55% are from among people with a
university degree. (CM)