At least 2.1 million Romanians are working in 15 of 24 member states of the European Union, with most of them at work in Italy, Spain and Germany, according to the European Commission. This is the first official figure reported by the European Commission.

"Member states' statistics and survey conducted on the labor market show that in early 2010 nearly 2 million Romanian citizens were working in 15 European Union countries, most of them working in Italy (890,000), Spain (825,000) and Germany(110,000)", said Cristina Arigho, spokesman for the Department of Employment, Social Affairs and the inclusion of the European Commission.

“The remaining 275,000 Romanians are working in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and in UK. Ten of these states- Belgium, Germany, Ireland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Austria and Great Britain have maintained some restrictions regarding Romania, like the need to obtain a work permit for certain qualifications.”, she also said.

According to research on the EU labor market, the number of Romanian citizens living in the 15 EU member states increased in 2009 at a slower pace than before the economic crisis and even decreased in the first quarter of 2010, then went up again in the next two quarters.

There is currently no institution that has a clear record of the number of Romanian workers abroad, although in recent years many organizations have tried to monitor the local labor migration to the West.

Alex Camburu, alex.camburu@romania-insider.com