Survey: One in four Romanian employees struggle to make ends meet

One out of four employees barely manage with what they earn and borrow money every month to have enough until the next salary, a survey undertaken by online recruitment platform BestJobs revealed.

Over a quarter of those surveyed admitted to not having enough money from their salary from month to month and not being able to save. Moreover, they had to borrow from family and friends until the next salary in order to make ends meet, the survey showed.

Another 27% of respondents said they often found themselves in the position of not having enough money until the next salary and having to borrow, while 26% had to do this sometimes. This happened as half of the respondents earned less than RON 2,500 (EUR 526) net per month, almost a quarter had a salary of up to RON 3,500 (EUR 736) net per month, and the rest earned above this level.

“The fact that the overall financial situation of the employees did not improve at all or even deteriorated over the past year, although the cost of living increased, does not help. Almost 37% of the respondents said they had the same financial situation as last year, while 32% said their financial situation worsened in the past 12 months, while 10% said it registered a major decline,” according to the survey. Only 20.7% reported an improvement of their financial situation in the past year.

At the same time, three out of ten respondents said they customarily use over 45% of their monthly salary to cover debts. Another 25% said they use in between 25% and 45% of the salary to cover accumulated debts, while a third use at most a quarter of their salary for the same purpose.

Although only 12% say they do not have any debts to cover, not everyone manages to save up from one month to another, while those that do save up small amounts. Almost half of the respondents do not save anything, a third save under 10% of what they earn every month and only 11% of the respondents manage to save up to a quarter of their salary.

In order to manage with the monthly salary, Romanians cut back on the travel budget (64% of respondents), from clothing purchases (57.6% of respondents), and from the going out and culture budget (47.8% of respondents). Almost half (47%) of respondents cut back on eating out, while 17.2% on sports, 13.5% on food purchases, 12.7% on health expenses, 8.9% on transport, 7.20% on education (books, courses), and 4.61% on utilities.

Despite financial concerns or worries, those surveyed cannot or will not give up on certain expenses such as the phone subscription (66% of the respondents), the internet subscription (58.2%), the cable TV subscription (41.8%), personal car (23.1%), cigarettes (15.8%), travel (15%), sport (11.2%), clothing (10.9%), and relaxation (8.07%).

The survey was conducted between July 15 and August 5 of this year among 922 internet users.