Number of unemployed people could reach one million this year, employers' union mulls
The number of unemployed Romanians may near one million this year and most of them will come from those industrial segments that rely greatly on exports, warn voices of employers.
According to the head of the National small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) Council, Ovidiu Nicolescu, the most dismissals will come from areas of the industry that count greatly on exports, such as transportations, industries producing slow moving consumer goods and from companies that provide services not much needed.
The president of the employers' union UGIR 1093, Cezar Coraci, reckons that SMEs will also leave many jobless people behind as they constitute the most fragile area of the Romanian economy, fighting lack of demands and effects of the decapitalization.
The unemployment spread depends on how the government decides to support the economy and the SMEs segment, explained Coraci. He added that the economic backdrop changed from the time when the 2009 budget was designed and that the differences should therefore be discussed.
"We hope the government will become more active and efficient as Romania already lost three months and cannot afford to wait for an anti-crisis plan,” stressed Coraci.
Measures should refer directly to the food industry, the constructions area, to the cement and siderurgy industries and should be enforced by immediate investments.
Nicolescu, on the other hand, suggests the government should lift taxes on the reinvested profit as soon as possible.
The labor minister Marian Sarbu said on March 23 that the number of unemployed people in Romania will hike by 300,000 people the most this year over the past year which would require a 500 million lei surplus to the budget for indemnities and trainings.
The jobless rate climbed to 5.3 percent in February and the number of jobless people increased by 32,953, the national labor agency ANOFM said. The rate was 0.4 percentage points higher than the January quota and 1 percentage point higher than the February 2008 quota.
As many as 477,860 people were unemployed at the end of last month according to ANOFM, of which 347,707 people were coming from the private sector.