According to initial estimates, some 700,000 workers are expected to return by the end of the first half of 2009, adding to the 360,000 declared unemployed in 2008. However, the jobless rate will rise due to employees who will be laid off on the local market, because the economic crisis is forcing companies to contract their activities.
The President of the Association of Immigrants from Eastern Countries (AIPE), Angela Placsintar, said that, in the past months, Romanians working in Spain have become very interested in vacancies and possibilities of returning to Romania. “The situation is confusing, and news from Romania is not optimistic. Romanians, especially those who worked illegally in Spain and do not benefit from social security, wish to return, but they are finding out that Romania is now also in crisis, and there are no more vacancies,” Placsintar told Business Standard. The President of the Association of Romanians in Italy (ARI), Eugen Terteleac, said that people are scared, as more than 40 percent of Romanians working in Italy are not employed legally, and will be the first to lose their jobs. A CURS study indicates that 30 percent of Romanians working in Spain and Italy want to come home in the near future. Meanwhile, considering the layoffs in the past few weeks, vacancies in Romania have dropped to 16,000 from over 20,000, according to the National Employment Agency (ANOFM).
The Ministry of Labor (MMFES) is already estimating 40,000 jobless people and a 6 percent unemployment rate in 2009 from a current 4 percent rate.
While Minister of Labor Mariana Cimpeanu said the local job market will not have a problem absorbing up to 500,000 future unemployed persons, MMFES’s Secretary of State, Akos Derzsi, said that the Romanian authorities must be realistic and admit that they do not have the necessary tools to deal with such a crisis. Tax specialist Gabriel Biris indicated that a rise in the jobless rate will not have a significant impact on the unemployment budget, because this budget has registered an excess in the past few years. “There are five times more jobs available in Romania than we think! But we must also make allowance for the current government’s incapacity to manage the situation properly,” said Marian Sirbu, former Minister of Labor and Vice President of the Social Democratic Party (PSD).
Constantin Miron, Attaché for work-related problems in Germany and Austria, told Business Standard that some 100,000 Romanians are working in Germany and another 15,000 in Austria, with more than 80 percent of these with seasonal contracts through ANOFM. “These people would have returned to Romania anyway, once their contracts expire, so the number of persons coming home is not significant,” he added.
