The Evolution of the Labour Market in Romania’s South-East Region

Abstract

The decreasing total population has had major repercussions on the labour force market as well. The difficulties that Romania’s South-East Region has to deal with characterise the whole country and have arisen as a result of the decline in the active and employed population. In the South-East Region, the dynamics of the active population decreased – as it did at national level – from 1,276 in 2004 to 1,240 thousand people in 2009. The declining trend affects both the population structure on residential areas and on sexes. The reduced active population is an obvious sign of a low activity rate with long-term effects on the economy of the region. On analysing the structure of the active population on residential areas, one can notice a slight increase in the urban active population: 708 thousand people in 2009 compared to 694 thousand people in 2003. However, the rural active population is decreasing permanently, 732 thousand people in 2009 compared to 586 thousand people in 2003. A significant decline was also visible in the employed population both at regional and national level: from 1,151 in 2004 to 1,151 in 2009. The regional and national dynamics of the employed population on residential areas is decreasing chiefly because of the decline in the rural employed population, which decreased with 20,000 people from 2009 to 2004. In the past years, the urban employed population has increased from 626 thousand people in 2004 to 642 thousand people in 2009. In 2009, the distribution of the employed population on activities of the national economy in every county of the South-East Region underlines the sectors with the highest share of employed population in the following order, in thousand people: agriculture (304), processing industry (225), trade (138) and construction (101).