On the other hand, the number of the employees reported by the National Statistics Institute in its monthly bulletin at the end of September was 4.2 million. The Forecasting Commission counted over 6.1 million employees, while the Pension House had 4.8 million employees registered and paying their social contributions.
“There are about 6.179 million employees on average working in Romania now, including those informally employed, reveals an investigation (…) by the National Statistics Institute (…). Of them only 4.52 million are formally employed, but the number of employees is calculated based on the number of people who earn income for their work,” says Ion Ghizdeanu, chairman of the National Forecasting Commission, an institution directly subordinated to the prime minister.
The Labor Inspection Department counts employees using the entries made by employers in a software application of the General Employee Register. Over 6.2 million employment contracts have been entered into this system, and the employees paid (those who may have several employment contracts) are 5.2 million.
“According to the data registered with the Labor Inspection department, the number of active employees in Romania stood at 5,258,668 at the end of October, and the number of active contracts stood at 6,276,448,” explains Ioana Santa, spokesperson of the Labor Ministry. “These are verified data taken from the reports and records of the Labor Inspection Department. We will not see an increase in insurance contributions if we don’t want to see it. Latest data show that insurance contributions rose by 14.9% in September 2011, compared with September 2010.”
Another institution that has data about the number of employees is the National House of Pensions and Other Social Insurance Rights (CNPAS), which sends out a report to the Labor Ministry every three months, published on the Ministry’s website. The latest report was filed for the second quarter of this year, and shows 4.8 million people were registered with employment contracts and contributing towards insurance.
“The labor market is extremely complex and every indicator of the number of employees has its specificity. Whereas the Labor Inspection Department has no data on civil servants, because they do not have employment contracts, the National Statistics Institute does not have records about people working in companies with less than four employees,” Ghizdeanu said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)