An alternative to the unpaid holiday

Pogea said that savings resulting from the forced holiday would be of RON 1.65 billion in three months, or a monthly RON 550 million. Or, calculated based on the average salary announced by Pogea, of RON 2,270 per month, over 240,000 average salaries that must not be paid in order to save this amount. This corresponds to nearly half of the over 572,000 unemployed registered by the end of July. The Minister said that the alternative to “10 days” would have been “tens of thousands of unemployed.”

Calculations indicate that in fact this could mean hundreds of thousands. “The impact of this measure [Ed. n. - the expected savings] will be of RON 1.65 billion [some €0.39 bln]. Considering an average monthly wage in the public sector of RON 2,270 [some €539], this means the layoff of some tens of thousands of employees. They may either opt for a reduction in their working hours to six from eight, during which continuity must be ensured, or a number of unpaid days off,” Pogea told The Money Channel. However, the Minister indicated that the jobless rate will not exceed this year’s 10 percent threshold. “Unemployment will definitely rise, but it will not reach double digits in Romania,” the official added.