The Economist writes about Romania: The “hot” economy attracts foreign workers

The Economist dedicates an article to Romania in which it shows that our growing economy is transforming our country from one of emigrants to one of immigrants.

Foreign employees, especially from Asia, now come here to work, writes The Economist.

A generation ago, Romanians stood in lines for food. Today in Bucharest, the queues are back, but those who sit down are not Romanians. On a street, Ukrainian refugees line up in front of an aid distribution center. Elsewhere in the capital, Nepalis, people from Bangladesh and other foreign nationals wait in front of an immigration office to renew their work and residence permits.

Like Italy in the 70s, Romania is on the verge of transitioning from a country of emigrants to one of immigrants, write the cited source.

Romania’s economy has been growing steadily for a decade, last year economic growth was 4.7%.

In 2010, price-adjusted GDP per capita was 53% of the EU average. And in 2021 it reached 74%.

Meanwhile, the population has fallen from 23.2 million in 1990 to 19 million today. The birth rate collapsed after the 1989 revolution and millions of people emigrated, the cited publication reports.

The country is now facing a serious labor shortage.

The queue in front of the immigration office in Bucharest is long.

Nikky, a Nigerian nanny, says she would ideally like to work in the UK, but would rather live here legally than live there illegally.

Atharv, a software engineer from India, and Nico, a bartender from Sri Lanka, do not speak Romanian, but this has not proved to be an obstacle for them so far.

It’s so hard to get into the office that Nico slept on the sidewalk overnight; the other two arrived at dawn.

Suddenly, there is a commotion: someone they haven’t seen before is trying to get in front of them.

Hotels, bars and restaurants are desperate for workers, but the biggest shortage is in construction.

Alexandru Băiculescu, deputy general manager of the Hidro Salt company, has 350 employees. Of these, 200 are foreigners, mostly Sri Lankans and Vietnamese. They are recruited through agencies, but Romania’s bureaucracy is so overwhelmed with requests that many of those invited never make it here.

Baiculescu pays $1,000 a month, plus room and board, but up to 40% of his new hires leave within months to try their luck, illegally, in richer countries.

“I can’t expand because of these issues,” he says.

Romania’s bureaucracy “is so complicated that many companies simply give up” on importing new workers, says Monica Roman, a professor who studies immigration.

Many of the workers, who come to escape poverty at home, are happy to take “any kind of job abroad.”

Adriana Iftime, the general director of the Federation of Employers of Construction Companies, says that the sector needs at least 100,000 new workers by the end of 2024. Romania will receive 27 billion euros from the EU reconstruction fund, of which up to 17 billion of euros will be allocated for infrastructure.

If we take into account other EU financing flows, Romania could receive more than 80 billion euros by 2027, reminds The Economist.

Foreign workers “are the solution when there is no other solution,” says Iftime.

In 2017, Romania had a quota of 3,000 permits per year for non-EU workers. But last year it reached 100,000.

Oana Ţoiu, a deputy who is part of the Labor Commission, says that although Romania needs foreign workers as a “quick fix” for the labor shortage, many of the people who can work and that the country needs are already here. The problem is that the welfare system and high taxes make part-time work unnecessary, especially for mothers with young children. “There is a huge space to take proactive measures for Romanians to fill these jobs.”

Many Romanians still emigrate for better paying jobs, but others return home. Meanwhile, Romania’s foreign-born population is growing.

At the end of 2022, there were 113,520 non-EU nationals in the country, an increase of 110% in five years.

There are also 54,765 EU citizens, 113,000 Ukrainian refugees and around 200,000 immigrants from neighboring Moldova (although most have Romanian citizenship).

Mircea Mocanu, who heads the office of the UN International Organization for Migration in Bucharest, estimates that, excluding Moldovans, by the end of the decade there will be 600,000 foreigners in Romania. This is a big and very fast change for our country.