The number of unemployed in Romania reached about 487,900 in January, the lowest level since 1994, the year when unemployment started being measured with the current methodology, according to data published by the National Statistics Institute (INS) yesterday.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate, namely the share of those unemployed in the total active population, dropped to 5.4%, the minimum since 2008.

The INS data shows that the number of unemployed fell below 500,000 in October last year and continued to drop in the following months, with the exception of December. In the last year, the number of unemployed people dropped by 94,000, from 582,132 in January 2016.

The unemployment rate is higher among men, namely 5.8%, compared to a rate of 4.9% among women.

The decline in unemployment in 2016 was mainly driven by the growing demand for labor, especially in Romania’s developed areas around the large cities. Company managers often complain about the lack of skilled labor force in Romania. They argue that this begins to limit the development of business in Romania.

The counties of Vaslui and Teleorman have the highest levels of unemployment in the country, namely 11.5%, respectively 10.1%. Some experts explain that the areas with high unemployment are characterized by a low level of education and poor qualification of the labor force.

Iulian Stanciu, the general director of the largest online retailer in Romania, eMag, yesterday sad that companies in all fields will be obliged to become high-tech in the future in order to remain competitive and to attract employees, in the context of a growing shortage of employees.

“Companies will fight for people, and only those that will provide a better productivity will win. This trend comes very fast. There won’t be unemployment, only the battle among companies,” Stanciu said.

He explained that large companies in technology manage to continuously improve internal processes by collecting data from clients.

editor@romania-insider.com