“My opinion is that unfortunately this economic growth we’re seeing is going into a black hole (…) I’m not saying the wages of some public sector employees must not be indexed, but there is no restructuring, no vision and attempt to reward public sector employees based on performance,” says Vladimir Sterescu, country manager with US outsourcing service provider CGS (Computer Generated Solutions), a company with 3,100 employees.
He says last week he got for the first time four requests from state institutions asking the company to grant unpaid leave to some of its employees for an unspecified period of time if possible.
“Those employees probably applied for a job for a temporary project with those state institutions. As they need people, the employing authorities probably thought they would help the applicants if they officially request us to grant them unpaid leave for an unspecified period of time so they would not lose their jobs with us.”
Employees in the public sector earn almost 2,300 lei (EUR517) in net amount per month on average, while private sector employees earn an average of about RON1,800 to RON1,900.
The raises public sector employees got prevent a faster paced increase in private sector wages because they generate an increase in taxes that private sector taxpayers have to pay, says Adrian Moraru, deputy director of the Institute for Public Policy.
“The gap between public sector and private sector wage raises is because of the election year. Surely, the almost socialist mentality of both major [political] parties in Romania would probably have them, if they could, raise private sector wages, too, and all they can do in this regard is say they are working on the minimum wage, but that doesn’t solve much.”
Out of the 4.5 million salaried employees in Romania’s economy, one quarter or 1.2 million are public sector employees.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)