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Concordia: 4 million people in Romania completely absent from labour market
Four million people in Romania's working population are completely absent from the labour market, and some of them, probably several hundred thousand, are vulnerable, said Radu Burnete, executive director of the Concordia Employers' Confederation, at a conference on Monday.
"According to INS [the National Institute of Statistics], by 2020 - 2021, there were about 12 million people aged between 15 and 64 years in Romania, able to work, we would say. Of these 12 million people, about 8 million are working. This means all the types of work you can imagine: employees in the private or public sector, entrepreneurs, housewives, call them what you like. They are active people, doing something and earning some kind of income. That means we have 4 million people who are completely absent. They are aged between 15 and 64, they could theoretically work, but they don't," Burnete said.
According to him, compared to countries in the region, Romania has a similar share of the 15-64 age group in the total population, but the number of employed people is much lower, and this problem should concern us.
"To give you an idea of what these figures mean, if I compare them with some other countries in the region - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland - those 12 million people, namely people between aged 15 and 64 years, in Romania they represent 64% of the population, in Poland 62%, in Hungary 63%, in Czech Republic 63%. Here we are in line with our region. If I look and relate the 8 million [in Romania's case - editor's note] active employed people to the entire population, what do I see? In Bulgaria we are talking about 74%, in the Czech Republic 77%, in Hungary 77%, in Romania 64.1%. So here we seem to have an oddity. Although the ratio between the population aged 15 to 64 in Romania versus the countries in the region seems to be the same, 60 something percent, the number of people in employment in Romania is much lower than in the region and this is a question that should concern us - and it does concern us, because part of these 4 million people are certainly vulnerable people. I don't know the figures, because nobody has looked closely at these 4 million people, but I can say that we are probably talking about several hundred thousand people who are vulnerable and not active in the labour market and that is a big loss. First of all a big loss for these people, because it's a problem not to have an income and that translates into many other tragedies. It's a loss for every one of these people. It's a loss for Romania's economy, because we need these people to be active in the workforce and they certainly can do it, but it's not a problem that we have been very concerned about," he explained.
In context, Radu Burnete pointed out that he very often asks a question when he is in a group of more than five people: "Is Romania a rich country or a poor country?" and he usually gets both answers. But in his opinion, Romania has not been a poor country for a long time, on the contrary, and its economy will continue to grow at an accelerated pace until 2035-2040.
He pointed out that there is capital in Romania, there is foreign investment, in a context where the situation is deteriorating for other regions, we also have technology, but there are not enough active people to work. And if we do not manage to activate this part of the population in the labour market, we will not achieve the economic growth we want.
In his opinion, many companies in the private sector do not realise that such a large number of people is involved.
"My feeling is that even in the private sector there is not a big enough concern as to how we integrate these people. I think that even many of the companies in the private sector do not realize that we are talking about quite a large number of people whose integration on the labour market entails a greater effort, but they are there, I mean they are here in Romania, we can do it," he added.
Radu Burnete participated, on Monday, in the conference on "Social and professional integration of people from vulnerable categories through social economy", organised by the Labour and Social Protection Committee of the Chamber of Deputies.