Under 150,000 non-EU workers currently in Romania, another 100,000 can come in 2025

Under 150,000 non-EU workers are currently in Romania, helping the country deal with an acute labor shortage that has been ongoing for years. The government is also set to approve a quota of 100,000 foreign workers in 2025.

According to data provided by the Labor Inspection, the number of active individual employment contracts held by employees who are citizens of non-European Union states was 146,387 as of December 12, 2024.

The number of new individual employment contracts signed by employees who are citizens of non-European Union states between January 1, 2024, and December 12, 2024, was 94,155. By comparison, the number of new individual employment contracts signed by employees who are citizens of non-European Union states in 2023 was 97,502, in 2022 was 93,780, and in 2021 was 52,575, according to Adevarul.

According to a new proposal, another 100,000 foreign workers from outside the EU can arrive in Romania with employment contracts in 2025. In total, they would represent approximately 1.25% of the number of employed persons in the second quarter of 2024, which, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics, was 7,996,000 people.

The Ministry of Labor argues that the Romanian authorities' objectives regarding migration are to maximize the benefits and limit/eliminate potential negative effects by promoting legal labor migration, thereby generating a positive impact on Romania's socio-economic climate, immigrants, and their countries of origin.

The fields with the most vacancies are residential and non-residential building construction (47,716), postal and courier activities (29,293), restaurants (21,457), temporary staffing activities (19,889), security (12,367), road freight transport (9,091), among others.

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