Romania’s unemployment rate rose in August for the first time in 13 months

Romania’s unemployment rate (under ILO standard) rose in August for the first time since July 2017, up to 4.3 percent, National Institute of Statistics (INS) data showed on Monday.

The unemployment rate reached in August is the highest of the last four months but came after decades-low level.

The level of 4.2 percent reached in May, June and July was the lowest since International Labour Organization (ILO) unemployment statistical data are available in Romania (1993).

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined in August by 0.6 percentage point from August 2017.

The number of unemployed persons aged 15-74 was 385,145 in August, compared with 380,568 in July and 447,949 in August 2017, according to official seasonally unadjusted data.

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The unemployment rate among men exceeds the rate among women by 1.4 percentage point, with 4.9 percent for men and 3.5 percent for women.

The unemployment rate represents the share of unemployed in the active population.

Few available jobs

Experts warn that Romania still has few available jobs compared to its total active population, and this factor limits its growth potential.

“The Romanian labor market offers a pretty complex and slightly puzzling perspective. In the 15-64-year old category, there are roughly 4.9 million employees in an active population of around 8.8 million. By contrast, neighboring Hungary has roughly 4.4 million employees and an active population of 4.6 million,” ING analysts said in a recent report.

Experts warn that Romania needs to maintain a high rate of jobs creation in order to keep structural unemployment under control.