Eurostat: One sixth of Romania’s workforce left the country, Romanians are the largest migrant population in EU

Romanians represented by far the largest migrant population in the European Union, around one sixth of Romania’s workforce working in other EU member states, according to Eurostat data released on Monday.

EU official data show that Romanians residing in another EU member state accounted for about a fifth (19.7 percent) of their working age co-nationals residing in Romania – meaning that for five working age Romanians working in their country, one Romanian is working abroad.

“In 2017, Romanian nationals of working age (20-64) residing abroad within the EU accounted for about a fifth (19.7 percent) of their co-nationals residing in Romania. The next largest shares were recorded by Lithuania (15.0 percent), Croatia (14.0 percent), Portugal (13.9 percent), Latvia (12.9 percent) and Bulgaria (12.5 percent),” Eurostat said.

The EU member states with the smallest share of mobile nationals are Germany (1 percent), the United Kingdom (1.1 percent), Sweden and France (both 1.3 percent).

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The share of Romania’s emigrated workforce rose by 12.3 percentage point during the last decade, from 7.4 percent of the home-country resident working age population in 2007.

Romanians working abroad are more active than those living in the country – the employment rate is 71.2 percent for the Romanians residents in another EU country, compared with 68.8 percent for the working age population (20-64 years) in Romania.

Around 3.4 million Romanians have gone abroad between 2007 and 2015 to escape poverty and corruption in their country, according to a UN International Migration Report.

Romanians are already the largest foreign nationality in Italy and Spain, with around one million residents in both countries.

Last year, Romanians became the second-largest non-British nationality living in United Kingdom. The number of Romanians in UK rose by 25 percent in 2017 to 411,000, according to official data.

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