The study also indicates that only one in five Romanians has found a job better than the one he had in Romania. For more than two thirds of the Romanians who moved to Spain, their current job either corresponds to the training and experience accumulated in the country of origin or its status is below that of Romania.
“Jobs characterized by prestige and higher financial advantages, but which request a higher training level, such as clerks, technicians, intellectual or managerial positions, attract very low percentages of the Romanians who migrated to Madrid,” said Paula Tufis, one of the authors of the study.
“Romanian migrants in Spain have personal income approximately twice or even more compared to employees working in Romania, for each of the occupied jobs. Though a real fact for a good part of the Romanian migrants in Spain, this “loss” of status did not necessarily translate into a loss of income, or at least it was not felt so, due to the higher average of such salaries in Spain compared with those in Romania,” said the authors of the study. The average income of Romanians working in Spain amounted to €1,400 in September 2008.
