Unemployment rate rising in the region

In the current European context, the evolution of unemployment rate is particularly important for major investments as well as for small and medium sized enterprises. Forecasts are bleak as possible : “I think unemployment rate did not reach yet its highest rate, but this will happen in 2010, in the first or second quarter. I do not think we will reach a rate of 10% but this is my opinion, “said the economist of the World Bank, Catalin Pauna.

Here we are in the second quarter of 2010 and taking into consideration the overview of the first quarter of this year we can say that the forecasts are not far from being fulfilled. If the unemployment rate in Romania for the last quarter of 2009 was 7.5%, in the first quarter of 2010 it reached 8.3% in comparison to 5.6% in the same period of last year.

This applies not only to Romania, the same upward trend being valid for Bulgaria too, another country in the region.

In the current European context, the evolution of unemployment rate is particularly important for major investments as well as for small and medium sized enterprises. Forecasts are bleak as possible : “I think unemployment rate did not reach yet its highest rate, but this will happen in 2010, in the first or second quarter. I do not think we will reach a rate of 10% but this is my opinion, “said the economist of the World Bank, Catalin Pauna.

Here we are in the second quarter of 2010 and taking into consideration the overview of the first quarter of this year we can say that the forecasts are not far from being fulfilled. If the unemployment rate in Romania for the last quarter of 2009 was 7.5%, in the first quarter of 2010 it reached 8.3% in comparison to 5.6% in the same period of last year.

This applies not only to Romania, the same upward trend being valid for Bulgaria too, another country in the region.

The Bulgarian Minister of Labour predicts an unemployment rate of 11.4% for the end of 2010 and the evolution confirms it: for the fourth quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate was of 6.3% and for the first months of 2010 it reached 10.1%.

As for Moldavian Republic, the data has not yet been published for 2010, but in the fourth quarter of 2009, the registered unemployment rate was of 6.2% in comparison to 3.9% for the same period of 2008.

The evolution of unemployment rate, regardless of country, will certainly depend on the level of economic recovery and how well companies have learned the lesson from the crisis period.

It will be hard for some categories to find jobs, the same categories that encountered difficulties even before the crisis, such as new graduates and persons coming from areas of activity not restructured.

According to data published by the National Agency for Employment, in Romania, the highest unemployment rate was registered in Vaslui, Mehedinti, Teleorman, Dolj, Ialomita, Alba and Covasna counties, while the lowest rates continue to be the same for Bucharest, Ilfov, Timis, Bihor and Cluj.

It is important to remember that many companies have appealed in Romania to one of the few measures of the government’s anti-crisis plan: technical unemployment. According to the law, during the period of technical unemployment – which should not exceed 90 days per year – employees are provided with 75 % of the salary, and employers do not pay social security contributions.

Even if we stand, as a figure, below the average unemployment rate in the European Union, we must not forget that unemployment is a consequence of the economic crisis and its effects will continue to manifest in the subsequent periods.