The domain on which the most jobs disappeared is manufacturing, with over 180,500 less employees, while health care staff increased by 7,500, public administration by 4,700, and education by 2,500 employees.
Other industries hard hit by Romania’s recession are contruction, with 58,700 employees laid off since September 2008, trade, with 40,700 jobs lost, the extraction industry, with 9,400 fewer employees, agriculture, with 10,900 job cuts, and transports, with 8,200 layoffs. Some 315,000 jobs have been cut in the first ten months of the crisis (October 2008 – July 2009), which translates to a speed of contraction on the labour market of over 1,000 jobs a day.
Eugen Preda, ANOFM Director, indicated that the number of layoffs would have been even higher if the government had not put into effect two anti-crisis measures on the labour market, one active and one passive. The active measure allows employers to not pay social scurity for three months for employees laid off temporarily, while the passive measure involves the extension of the period of unemployment benefits by three months. Preda also believes that the real Romanian unemployment figure is at least two percentage points higher than the official one figure.
