ILO unemployment further drops in Romania to 3.8%

Romania’s seasonally and workday adjusted unemployment rate, measured under ILO standards (the share of the active population actively seeking employment) has further dropped to 3.8% at the end of December, the statistics office INS informed. The rate was 0.8 percentage points (pp) lower compared to the end of 2017. The rate at the end of 2018 is already at the level projected by the state forecasting body CNSP for 2022 and this indicates even tighter labor market than envisaged by CNSP under the Winter Forecast. CNSP revised the labor market data under its Winter Forecast predicting a sharper rise in the real wages as a result. Thus, CNSP expected the average ILO unemployment to ease to 4.1% IN 2019 (on average) from 4.2% in 2018, to further slide to 3.8% in 2022. While it is hard to forecast even lower figures for the coming years, the scarce workforce is likely to keep putting pressure on wages thus supporting the Government’s expectations for higher real incomes. For this, however, a business climate supportive to investments is required, which is not the case given the supplementary taxes and the lack of regulatory predictability. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Pexels.com)