RSS
Voinea (BNR): About 30% of labour force and 13% of Romania’s population works abroad
About 30% of labour force and 13% of Romania’s population works abroad, but it represents Romania’s lost GDP, said Liviu Voinea, the deputy governor of BNR at the conference.
“Romania achieved a lot in these ten years: nominal convergence, part of real convergence, financial stability, it won market confidence and made structural reforms. In order to continue the real convergence process, Romania must explore its growth potential and get closer to full labour force occupation. Although we have 5% unemployment today, we far from the full occupation of labour force because we have a very important demographic problem, about we have talked very little: about 30% of labour force and 13% of Romania’s population works abroad. These are official figures. This is Romania’s lost GDP, we could say,” Voinea said.
He pointed to the fact that now, when economic growth rates are recorder over potential, Romania continues to report negative birth rates. The problem of population getting old affects potential GDP, but getting old is doubled by a high rate of people with poverty risk.
“In fact, an estimate made by our bank colleagues shows that 1% increase of population aged over 65 determines the drop of potential GDP by 1.3%. The estimate is made for the last 12 years in six countries in the area,”Voinea showed.
In this context, the BNR official pointed out that the living standard and salary differences continue to explain the emigration wave even on the background of high economic growth rates. This is an unequal growth at inter-regional level, imbalanced as structure, deepening inequality in society.