The unemployment rate among young people in the NEET segment (Not in Education, Employment or Training) has increased from 17%, before the pandemic, to 23% at present, noted the President of the National Council of Small and Medium Private Enterprises of Romania (CNIPMMR), Florin Jianu, quoted by Agerpres. He made the statements at the National Recovery Forum and claimed that Romania needs a national start-up program, adding a dimension on digitalization.
“Seven out of ten young people have enrolled this year in the Baccalaureate. So three out of ten didn’t sign up… An extremely serious thing for our future as a society, including here the economy, the way Romania will look, its workforce. The Neet youth unemployment rate rose to 23%, where before the crisis we were below 17%. If we are to look at what is happening in other countries, such as Spain or Greece, where 50% is the unemployment rate among these young people, these things must concern us. We must stop this exodus coming back on the wallpaper. We, for 27 years, at the National Council of SMEs have also carried out the White Paper on SMEs and have seen how the problem of small and medium-sized enterprises has changed. If two years ago we were discussing the main problem as a lack of labor, last year was a problem of sME survival, and now we are back to that problem of labor shortages. The first sector affected is tourism, which, again, is beginning to complain about this problem… So we have to stop this hemorrhage,” Jianu claimed.
The head of CNIPMMR also mentioned that Romania will have a shortage in the labour market if the implementation of the investments made with the existing financial instruments through the National Recovery and Resilience Programme (NrPR) is not started.
“The solutions are specific to each area. As I have said many times in the public space, you need fresh blood again in the economy. It’s the first reason you need to have a national start-up program, adding a digitalization zone here. The way you build these programs is defining for society. I did not understand why Measure 3 to support small and medium-sized enterprises was dropped, because it was a very good measure, which was a different kind of need, not that of working capital, but of investment, of regaining competitiveness, of innovation. Some Member States are in the fourth round of support for the business environment to return from this CVIVID crisis. Resilience programs are beginning to be implemented. In my opinion, there will be unfair competition in the sense that if we do not quickly start to put these much-needed instruments into practice, we will see that there will be a deficit primarily in the labor market. Many Romanians will go to work at construction firms, HoReCa. For example, Italy is investing 13 billion euros in what it has called ‘Tourism 4.0’. How to compare Romanian tourism and its return with a capital infusion of 13 billion euros for a 4.0 tourism?” stressed Florin Jianu.
Sustainable Romania and EM360 Group organized the National Recovery Forum on Tuesday, an online event that aims to bring to the debate the opportunity romania has through the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.
HoReCA players, as well as those in human resources, are already talking about a labour crisis. With the resumption of events and the summer season, employers in HoReCa have resumed recruitment at a level similar to that of 2019, say representatives of the recruitment platform eJobs. However, those in need of staff face strong competition from operators in the sector abroad. Another change in the labour market: some of the employees who are unemployed in HoReCA have changed their field of activity.