Romania has a record number of budget officers. We pay them more than Germany, France, Spain or Italy

Romania has a record number of budget holders: 1.3 million. Their salary expense has increased 10 times in the last 20 years! The share of expenses in the budget is the fourth highest in the European Union. We pay them more than Germany, France, Spain or Italy.

According to the data, in 2023, our country hired 38 new budget officers every day, Antena 3 announced. Under these conditions, the Romanian budget apparatus reached the top of the European ranking. Romania has the fourth highest cost with the budgetary apparatus.

Concretely, our country is exceeded at the percentage granted salary expenses of the budgets only by three countries considered “tax havens”: Cyprus, Malta and Ireland.

In Romania, 22.2% of the revenues collected by the state go to pay the salaries of budget workers. At the opposite pole, the countries that have the least budget expenditures are the Czech Republic, Spain or Germany.

At the top, in 2023, the year in which the Government said it would not hire in the state, when the filling of vacant or temporarily vacant positions through competition or examination was “frozen”, the budgetary apparatus increased by 14,000 people, according to the Institute’s data National Statistics.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Finance, the number of positions held in public institutions and authorities in Romania is over 1.3 million employees. Most are employed in the Local Public Administration, followed by teachers and, subsequently, employees in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Defense.

However, more and more budget officers are dissatisfied with salaries. Since last year, thousands of state employees took to the streets dissatisfied with their incomes, and the protest actions also had solutions.

Following the strikes, teachers, policemen, health unions and magistrates obtained salary increases. This, while workers at the Romanian Post Office and museum employees are currently protesting to get pay rises.

However, the quarrels with the budget officials have exploded from year to year. More precisely, the expenditure on the salaries of budget officers has increased by no less than 10 times in the last 20 years.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Public Finance, if in 2004, for example, the Romanian state paid a little over 15 billion lei with the salaries of budget workers, the figures have grown exponentially. In 2014, they reached almost 50 billion lei, and this year no less than 145.5 billion lei will be allocated.

For this year, the Ciolacu government’s budget includes an 11% salary increase. After the first 3 months of the year, spending almost doubled to 20%.