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PIAROM: study on the dynamics of labor force
The number of employees with general education increased by 8.5 pct in 2016, to over 750,000 employment contracts, those with secondary and post-secondary education rose by 12 pct, reaching more than 510,000 work contracts, and those with higher education fell by 11.5 pct, down to about 950,000 employees, show data from a study on the dynamics of labor force, conducted by the Local Investors Employers (PIAROM).
According to employers, these developments have practically reduced the gap between the share of higher education employees and the secondary education employees within the total workforce, from 7.66 pct to 3.88 pct, which indicates a "worrying" equalization trend within these two categories of employees.
"By digging deeper into the causes of this gap, we notice that the main occupations segments for which there have been increases in the number of individual labor contracts (CIM) in the period 2015-2016 were those with lower qualifications, respectively: unskilled workers in mining, construction, manufacturing and transportation industries (+48,603 CIM), sales employees (+26,198 CIM) and vehicle drivers and mobile operators of mobile installations and equipment (+22,294 CIM). On the other hand, the most important decreases were recorded in the occupations groups with high degree of qualifications, namely: specialists in science and engineering (-25,992 CIM), specialists in health (-8,371 CIM) and leaders in the administrative and commercial domains (-8,110 CIM)," the release reads.
PIAROM mentions that there are also increases in the high qualifications labor force segment, such as the information and communications technology specialists (+13,171 CIM), but these developments have more of a regional character.
"A second preliminary conclusion concerns the correlation of the structure of education units' graduates with the labor market requirements. Taking the example of the professional education, we notice that the three main professional qualifications will be, for 2017, those of car mechanic (4,726 graduates), textile products manufacturer (1,593 graduates) and sales waiter in food-serving units (1,345 graduates). By analyzing the number of graduates of first professional qualification out of the three mentioned, in relation to the roughly 26,000 mechanics listed in the Register of employees' evidence, we identify a ratio of 5.38 CIM / graduate, which reveals that, per national average, the number of graduates is oversized relative to the actual needs of the market, even if we take into consideration the compatibility with other qualifications and the professional retraining possibilities," shows PIAROM.
Regarding the Occupations Classification in Romania (COR), PIAROM sustains that it should undergo a reorganization at the COR code level.
"As regards wages, the increasing share of minimum wage employees within the total workforce represents a worrying trend. According to Eurostat data, the percentage of these employees tripled in the period 2010 - 2014, without exceeding the level of 15 pct. In 2016, however, the CIM share with the gross wage of less than 300 euro reached 41.54 pct of the overall employment contracts, which corresponds to a number of 2.07 million CIMs. This accelerated growth was due to successive increases of the minimum wage, which practically led to an equalization trend of the employment wage in the minimum range," maintains PIAROM.
The Employers state that another issue Romania continues to face is the poor coverage of the active population with individual labor contracts, a situation especially obvious in certain counties, in the context of regional imbalances. Other regional imbalances manifest themselves in terms of specialists' distribution.