Romania: crisis and the job market

Thin opportunities for Youth

If you are a freshly graduated student, you think people will hire you because of your knowledge and because you were the best in your class. Wrong! You will be accepted only if you have work experience and you prove you really want and need this job, as well as that you are the best at it. In a country like Romania, where work experience is starting to be more and more tremendously important as opposed to the case when you dedicated your time to studying, finding a job is now even harder


By ROXANA CIUPARIU
from Bucharest, ROMANIA


As the economic crisis started affecting not only USA but also Europe, countries reacted differently to it, some feeling it worse than others. In countries like United Kingdom and Iceland, where the national currency started losing grounds and the economy "yells for a hero", unemployment brought up the worse in humans, as a factor contributing to the growth of delinquency rate as well as incentive for racist manifestations against immigrants.

While older members of the European Union struggle to find solutions the crisis seems affecting mostly countries that do not have the euro. Iceland, EU-sceptic for a long time alongside Norway, after seeing its currency shrink under its eyes, started considered the Union as a viable and really necessary option, for the benefits brought by the Euro and the European Monetary system in general.

However, new countries in EU, like Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria seem affected by the crisis mostly in the realm of employment. Young people who are due to graduate in summer 2009, as well as those who realise there is a need to find a job to sustain themselves, do not look happy with what the market has to offer. The offers have diminished, competition is sharper than ever and possibilities to get a job have decreased.

Raising unemployment

Unemployment is affecting a lot of domains. According to the National Institute of Statistics in Romania (rom: Institutul Nacional de Statistic?, INS), unemployment rate could reach 10% of the total population in 2009, which means that by the end of this year, with all the companies already closed and those that face closure (among whom the chocolate factory Poiana and the car factory Dacia), Romania will have at least one million unemployed people. At the end of January 2009 the same institute recorded a further increase in the unemployment rate, especially when it comes to make a difference between unemployed people that receive requital and those who not, estimating that by the end of June the number of the second group will exceed the number of those who receive requital.

With this bad prognostic, a lot of young people started taking in consideration two options: either staying one more year in school, one way or another, and, hence, living on parents expenses or from the type of jobs that fast-food chains like McDonalds' can offer you, or, holding on with their teeth to the lousy and unpleasant jobs they have. Positive aspect of this is positive only from the perspective of the employer, since the employer realises than every employee will do its best to keep his or her job, which, in the end, means harder and better work. This leads, more or less to a form of exploitation and a stress on the shoulders of the worker.

Looking at this from the other side, the employee puts up with all the bad things and the hard work he is, more or less, suddenly subject to, only as to keep his/her job. For example, a girl working as an accountant for a car dealership in Romania is now under pressure, since it was revealed some cars have mysteriously disappeared. Tension is in its element at work and, the only thing stopping her from leaving is the thought that she needs the money now more than before.

The crisis has also affected big fast-food chains in Romania. Sheriffs, one of the first American brands entering the Romanian market in the 1990s has reduced the space of its first restaurant opened in Bucharest. The reason is simple: it does not gain that much as to afford to keep that space. And, with the space reduction, comes also a reductions of personnel, which leads to more unemployed people on the market.

Working or studying?

On the other hand, the creations and restructurings that are undergoing in Bucharest and that made this nice city look like a construction site are now stopped because funds are lacking and people cannot be paid. The number of people coming back from Italy and Spain where they undergone works in constructions mostly is adding to those who stayed here to work in the same business. And few of them can find a job in this line of business, although the capital looks like it would need a lot of workers. Importing cheep Chinese workers proved as a good idea in the eyes of the government, but, months after this business started, money simply run out even for them.

In a time like this, conditions and opportunities are being thinned out. If you are a freshly graduated student, you think people will hire you because of your knowledge and because you were the best in your class. Wrong! You will be accepted only if you have work experience and you prove you really want and need this job, as well as that you are the best at it. In a country like Romania, where work experience is starting to be more and more tremendously important as opposed to the case when you dedicated your time to studying, finding a job is now even harder.

People are being fired, but they are not replaced by other people. Smart students, who really know a lot, are being pushed away because they have dedicated their time to studying and not working for a miserable salary only to have something to write down in their CV. On the other hand, the market, once full of students who chose to work while studying (and this last one was manifested by a simple presence during exam session) is slowly letting go those who prove not to be up to the challenge of the time. Either way you look at the situation, it seems to be a loss-loss situation from both sides.

Western happiness

One can say Romania is one unique case, while other could argue that is mostly the historical background that emboldened the crisis. By comparison, a Western, smaller European country like the Netherlands is doing quite well. This country has always done well economically and is among the first European countries when it comes to its people's happiness. Young people work here as well during school or university, but this does not affect their performances in these institutions. Absence or excuses based "I work" type of arguments do not find their place in the educational system and are not tolerated. And now, the crisis is not visibly affecting the society. Citizens still organise vacations, they drink, party, and enjoy dinners like nothing is happen. You might see one building closed and the office of company that was once there moved to some other space, but they called economical randomization of the space.

Jobs can still be found in Netherlands, mainly if you are a citizen. Having strict rules keeps the job market open for those really worthy of jobs, especially for their own citizens.

However, Romania is not Netherlands and there is a definitive gap between the processes that these two countries have been through. To fix the employment service in Romania will take more than to pass the crisis; it requires an adjustment of mentalities.


(Published: 10.05.2009.)