If Romania wants more economic growth, you need a workforce, but the population is shrinking. Therefore, in addition to the policy of encouraging fertility, Romania should make efforts to absorb the labor force from agriculture, where there is a lot of fragmentation, to reduce the state apparatus and transfer the labor force to industry, to attract labor force from abroad, states the president of AmCham Romania Ionuc Simion.

In AmCham’s annual barometer, a survey on the quality of the investment environment in Romania, one of the questions concerns the labor market. Last year, 92% of respondents said that the situation on the labor market was extremely tough.

“Qualified labor is very difficult to find, and labor costs have increased at an accelerated pace, significantly undermining Romania’s competitiveness in attracting investment projects on the same pillar as before. “Come to the new workforce, skilled and cheap,” said Ionuts Simion.

According to him, Romania’s problems are significant: on the one hand, we are observing the migration of highly qualified labor force. Those who are well trained go abroad, they are paid three to four times better than in Romania.

“No, because, you see, Romania, I don’t know, is afraid of kites. Simply put, the standard of living in Romania has improved significantly, but it has not yet reached the level of Western countries,” he said.

The results of childbirth will be catastrophic in 10-15 years. How many people to work does Romania need for high economic growth

Second, he says, is the birth rate problem, and it’s starting to show.

“It is lagging behind and the results will be even more catastrophic in 10-15 years,” said the president of AmCham Romania.

The third element is related to the economic growth of Romania.

“Well, in order to have high economic growth, you need resources, you need labor force, otherwise the population of Romania is not increasing, but decreasing,” said Ionuc Simion.

• “In 2019, we did a study, we even proposed to update it, which looked like this: if Romania aims to grow by 3-3.5% per year, then Romania, with the current workforce that it has of 5.1 million, 1 million people still need it. Where to get this million? If every year we have from 100,000 to 300,000 people leaving the country to work abroad?

“Either we absorb from other economic sectors (for example, in agriculture, where there is very high fragmentation and labor force participation there gives very low economic results, then you bring it into industry), or we talk about reconversion (how many times have we said whether we cut the state apparatus and transfer that labor to industry, where it generates more value), or bring labor back from abroad,” he said.

• Another solution is to increase labor quotas from Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, etc., to come and cover the industrial sectors that are suffering greatly in Romania.

H2: We are changing the law on education worse than the tax law

“Romania needs a highly skilled workforce, even if some say it’s not a problem, I assure you, ask anyone and you’ll hear that it’s a real problem, and above all, it’s the biggest threat,” he explained to Ionut . Simion

The business community is worried and scared about what might happen in 35 years, when things don’t look so good at all.

“That’s why there should be investments in education. It should be a country project, it should last 20-40 years. We are changing the law on education worse than the law on taxes,” the president of AmCham Romania also stated.

• Here the role of an educated Romania must be important, and let’s see what it produces, that it starts to give results.

Article based on AmCham