Romania's employment rate, which represents the proportion of the working age population (15-64) that is employed, amounted to 61.6% in 2016, up 0.2 percentage points over the level reported in 2015, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (INS).

Similar to previous years, the employment rate was higher among men in 2016 (69.7% for men vs. 53.3% for women). Based on areas of residence, 62.6% of the urban population was employed, compared to 60.2% of those living in rural areas.

The employment rate among those aged 20-64 was of 66.3%, 3.7 percentage points below the national target of 70% set under the Europe 2020 Strategy. When it comes to young people (aged 15-24), the rate stood at 22.3% last year.

According to INS, the highest employment rate was registered among graduates of higher education (86.2%). Meanwhile, 65.3% of those with medium education and only 41% of those with low levels of education were employed last year.

The data also shows that the employees continued to hold the largest share in total employment last year, namely 73.4%, while the self-employed and the unpaid family workers accounted for 25.6% of total employment.

Over 723,000 people (8.6% of total employment) worked part-time last year, with most of them (82.8%) being active in agriculture. On average, Romanians worked 38.8 hours a week at their main job last year. However, 130,000 also conducted secondary activities, for which they worked an average of 12.9 hours a week.

Last year, Romania’s active population was of over 8.97 million people, of which some 8.44 million were employed and 530,000 were unemployed, according to INS.

The unemployment rate stood at 5.9% in 2016, down from 6.8% in 2015. Based on gender, 6.6% of men were unemployed last year, compared to 5% of women. The highest unemployment rate was registered among young people aged 15-24, namely 20.6%.

Unemployment rate drops to 5.5% in Romania in Q4 2016

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com