Although some 10 percent of Romanians indicate they have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis, only four percent would chose a different profession and look for a job in another city.
According to the Vice President of the National Trade Union Block (BNS), Ovidiu Jurca, the concern of Romanians regarding the future of jobs is justified. “On the one hand, Romania does not have the economic development and the capacity of other countries in the EU to recover lost jobs, and there is no diversity of economic sectors to which the unemployed could reorient themselves. On the other hand, Romanians see that the government is incapable of a more coherent policy for countering the economic crisis,” Jurca told Business Standard.
Regarding those who have already lost their jobs, the official said that while there are fewer Romanians in this situation than are in Spain or the Baltic states, where unemployment rates are double-digit, many employers resorted to layoffs for fear of the crisis.
Over 160,000 Romanians were laid off between October 2008 and May 2009, with the jobless rate amounting to six percent, a record percentage in the past four years. The three countries with the highest unemployment rates in the European Union are Spain, with 18.7 percent, Latvia, at 16.3 percent, and Estonia, with 15.6 percent.
