Liviu Voinea (BNR): 30 pct of Romania’s labor force is abroad

According to National Bank of Romania (BNR) vice governor Liviu Voinea, 30 percent of the labor force and 13 percent of Romania’s population are working in foreign countries.

“Although today we have an unemployment of 5 percent, we’re far from reaching full potential of the labor market and we have an important demographic problem: almost 30 percent of the labor force and 13 percent of Romania’s population works abroad. This are the official numbers. We could say that this is the lost GDP of Romania,“ stated vice governor Voinea.

Voinea spoke about this issue during the “10 years since Romania joined the European Union” conference. He reminded that Romania has a negative birth rate which also affects the GDP. In the last 12 years the share of the population over 65 years grew by 1 percent which led to a drop by 1.3 percent of GDP, says a recent BNR assessment.

He says that even if the economy grows there is still a difference between regions and between generations. That explains why many young people are determined to leave the country and seek for higher salaries abroad.

Teodora Marinescu

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