“The depopulation of the country is entering a more advanced, more dramatic stage,” says professor Vasile Ghetau, head of the Demographic Research Center of the Romanian Academy.
The economy loses EUR6,000 per year for each worker who chooses to go abroad instead of working for a company in Romania (assuming an average gross wage of EUR500 per month). With 184,000 emigrants last year, the economy lost EUR1.1 billion from the potential wages of the people who left the country in the past year, ZF has calculated.
“Emigration depends on what segment of the workforce leaves. If highly skilled human capital from such fields as information technology, advanced engineering experts and software developers emigrate, then costs are very high,” explained Professor Dumitru Miron with the International Business and Economics faculty of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)