Two Romanians. The unemployment map shows a huge gap between the country's counties. “20 years ago, most of the unemployed came from work”

The national unemployment rate reached, at the end of September, 3.15%, but the gap between the county with the highest rate and the one where jobs are most easily found is enormous. The unemployed without school, or at most with primary or secondary education, represent almost two thirds of the total.

The unemployed who are actively looking for work, a small share in the total number of unemployed PHOTO: archive/AM

Ilfov is the county with the lowest unemployment rate – only 0.44%, while in Vaslui unemployment reached 8.81%. There are major differences between the counties also in terms of the share of the unemployed with benefits (graduates and the unemployed who are registered in the labor field), in those with a labor market with too few offers, those without benefits even exceed 90% (this is the case of Dolj county, with 90.91% unemployed without benefits in total).

At the end of September, Romania had 252,520 people looking for a job in the records of the public employment service, down by 1,211 compared to the previous month. Of these, 54,225 were unemployed with benefits and 198,295 without benefits. The share of those without compensation was 78.53%, slightly lower than last month.

By gender, the unemployment rate for men was 3.03%, decreasing, and for women 3.31%, slightly increasing. In absolute numbers, there were 132,218 unemployed men and 120,302 women. Most of the unemployed, 184,696, come from rural areas, while 67,824 are found in urban areas.

In Vaslui county, the unemployment rate reached 8.81%, the county being closely followed by Mehedinți, with 8.77%, and Teleorman – 8.76%. The lowest rate is in Ilfov, 0.44%, the difference between the extreme values ​​being 8.37 percentage points.

Without a book, you hardly get a legal job

In terms of education, 30.35% of the unemployed have no education at all or only primary education, another 33.72% have secondary education and only 4.7% have university education. This structure shows a clear correlation between the level of education and the difficulty of finding a job.

Long-term unemployment remains a problem: there are 8,458 young people under the age of 25 who have been out of work for more than 6 months and 91,473 adults unemployed for more than 12 months. Percentage-wise, they represent over a third of unemployed youth and over 40% of unemployed adults.

Without school, access to a job is almost impossible, and that's also because the untrained unemployed, although they make it from day to day, are not even willing to perform unskilled work, often for minimum wage. On the other hand, the vocational training courses that adults can access through the public employment service require the completion of at least four classes. And then, how does the state integrate the hard-to-employ unemployed into the labor market, we tried to find out by talking to the deputy director of the Olt County Employment Agency, Narcișa Şerban.

In order to be included in the employment projects that are currently underway, targeting precisely the unemployed who are difficult to find work, their level of education must reach at most ISCED 2, which means graduating from secondary school. The problem, Narcisa Şerban points out, is those who are out of school, those who cannot prove that they have attended at least three or four classes. For those without a day of school, the only solution is to enroll in “Second Chance” programs that are organized for adult literacy.

With only a few completed classes, the unemployed can instead qualify for jobs such as groundskeeper, or plant culture worker, for example, but not limited to that.

In the future, the rigors may be even greater, because many standards are being revised. Competences have changed, and the standards need to be modified in turn, raising the level required to attend professional courses.

“We also have basic digital skills courses, for which secondary school is required, you don't need to have high school. It's not a computer operator course, it's basic digital skills. But for those who have no school at all, there is currently no support in terms of vocational training. Support in terms of integration into the labor market, on the other hand, if unskilled people without schooling are requested, we can provide, we can direct them to jobs”explained Şerban.

The projects that are carried out in each county include in the target groups several hundreds of such unemployed people with little schooling, and some of them are later integrated into the labor market, or they are of the order of thousands. On the other hand, the interest of those with low levels of training to learn a trade and find a job is often reduced.

Many have the impression that if they have obtained a qualification certificate it is a given that they will be employed, not understanding that it is the employer who decides according to the skills of the candidate in front of him. Employers, on the other hand, have a big problem when hiring first-timers, even though they are no longer of entry age. “I stay for a month, two and it seems difficult to them, because there are people who have not worked all their life and when they need to do something, more than to sit for nothing, it seems difficult to them. We are not talking about all of them. Some stay. It is easier to integrate those who are over 35-40 years old and who have worked before, even if not with legal forms”, said Şerban.

Out-of-school youth, more numerous than decades ago

The structure of unemployment has changed, with the unemployed without school being much more numerous today. It is shocking that there are many unemployed people in this category among young people up to 30 years old, mainly from rural areas. When asked how they ended up in this situation, many reason that “the parents didn't keep their heads”. Others say they worked “all day” when they were little, or went abroad and dropped out of school.

In the case of girls, the reasons that took them away from school in adolescence are related to starting a family from a very young age. However, young women are less included in these statistics, because they rarely apply for social benefits, such as social aid, which would oblige them to apply to AJOFM in order to be counted as job seekers.

“For us, a percentage of 5% if we manage to remove this gray part of the labor market is important”, said the deputy director of AJOFM Olt.

The increase in the unemployment rate, in certain periods, is precisely related to the registration of people who have never worked legally, have not finished school and are satisfied with various social benefits. In some cases, the amount of these benefits approaches the level of the minimum wage, and the beneficiaries do not find the motivation to enter work for an income that they obtain without any effort. Inclusion in training projects is easier to achieve when they are financed by European money and also involve the granting of subsidies. Motivated by money, the unemployed come to the courses and some are later integrated.

“We periodically have campaigns, through various funds or through our various activities, and we try to remove from the gray part of the labor market people who have never been in this kind of activity. And in certain periods, when the number of people in our record inexplicably increases, inexplicably seen from the outside, in fact the explanation is this”added Narcisa Şerban.

It is young people who respond best in the long term to this type of public employment service intervention. “They are more mobile from a geographical point of view, and if they are offered a job in the city and they stay in the country, they are willing to make this move, to mobilize. Those who have families with children and are settled in the country are more difficult to convince, especially women.” added Şerban. An important role in changing the optics of these categories of unemployed could be played by the specialists from the social assistance services in the town halls, believes Narcisa Șerban, through discussions to be held with all family members.

Without immediate financial benefits, the long-term unemployed are hard to convince to participate in training courses. The easiest to ascertain is in the case of social aid beneficiaries, who may also receive another type of aid (social grants for children, heating aid, etc.) and who are sometimes only convinced by the prospect that their social aid could be suspended if they refuse.

If, after completing the course, the unemployed person is selected for employment and refuses, AJOFM forwards this to the institution that pays the social benefit, and the institution further decides what happens with the payment. The unemployed person is withdrawn from the database as a job seeker, but can return after 6 months for a new registration.

The structure of unemployment has changed a lot, confirms Narcisa Şerban, in recent decades.

“20 years ago, a lot of people came from work. There were people who had studies, qualifications, maybe even specialized high school, even higher educationre. The level of education was somewhere predominantly towards ISCED 3, vocational school-high school”, emphasized Şerban. And today, among the unemployed over 55 years of age, unqualified people are found much less often, compared to what happens among young people.

Moreover, among the unemployed who return to school to complete their studies, most are people in their 40s and older.