How much will the minimum wage be in 2026: Ilie Bolojan announces that he will make a decision by Christmas / What trade unionists and employers say

The government will make a decision on the level of the minimum wage for next year, by Christmas, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said on Wednesday, after the meeting of the Tripartite National Council at the Victoria Palace. Bogdan Hossu, the leader of Cartel Alfa, said that “initially the prime minister expressed his point of view for the freezing of the minimum wage in the economy”, a measure which, according to the trade unionist, would harm the budget and generate the legislation of tax evasion. Employers supported maintaining the minimum gross salary at the current level of 4,050 lei per month.

Establishing the level of the minimum gross basic salary per country guaranteed in payment for next year was the main theme of the consultations held on Wednesday, at the Victoria Palace, by the representatives of the Government and those of employers and unions, during the meeting of the Tripartite National Council for Social Dialogue.

“Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan stated that increasing the minimum wage would protect the purchasing power of employees with low incomes, however, it would have a series of negative effects. The Prime Minister mentioned fueling the inflationary spiral, increasing the pressure on small businesses, which would cause the loss of jobs in HORECA, the furniture industry, the light industry, as well as the increase in personnel expenses in the budget system”, announced the Government.

While employers supported maintaining the gross minimum wage at the current level of 4,050 lei per month, to avoid layoffs, the unions demanded an increase of the minimum wage by at least 300 lei, up to 4,350 lei, to protect purchasing power affected by inflation and rising taxes.

After the meeting of the Tripartite Council, the representatives of the unions and employers came out to make statements to argue their positions regarding the minimum wage.

Trade unionist: I drew the attention of the prime minister that the perception is that he hates employees

Bogdan Hossu, the leader of the Cartel Alfa trade union, claimed that “initially the prime minister expressed his point of view for freezing the guaranteed minimum wage in the economy”. In the opinion of the union leader, such a measure “means damage to the state budget”.

“I pointed out that they want to legislate tax evasion. Having a third of employees on the minimum wage means you cannot claim economic growth and it is clearly a tax evasion that is mainly supported by small and medium-sized enterprises interested in maximizing their profits,” said Hossu.

The trade unionist says that he conveyed to the prime minister the perception that his colleagues have about the head of the Executive.

“I drew the attention of the prime minister that the perception, at least that is transmitted to me by my colleagues, is that his lordship hates the employees and citizens of Romania and that the measures are taken tendently to dumb them down and in fact still protect the companies with private and state capital”, said Bogdan Hossu.

Three variants of the minimum salary proposed by the National Bank of Romania

For his part, Dumitru Costin, the leader of the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS), specified that he proposed three options for increasing the minimum gross salary from January 1, 2026.

“The first means an increase in the minimum wage to 4,350 lei, which represents the minimum percentage of weight in the environment on the economy provided for in the transposition law of the EU Directive and respects the calculation formula, simultaneously with the reduction of the tax deduction from 300 to 200 lei”, said Dumitru Costin.

The trade union leader recalled that “last year the SNB requested the elimination of this nonsense called the tax deduction of 300 lei which consolidated in recent years an extremely high number of employees paid the minimum wage”.

“We have reached economic aberrations in which in one company, the pinnacle of a company with state capital, Poșta Română, out of 20,000 employees, over 14,000 are paid minimum wage regardless of the quality and complexity of the work, the qualification of the workers, they are all paid the same, one water and one land. We also requested the breaking of the links of the minimum wage with other social benefits that would lead to increases in budget expenditures,” he said the leader of the SNB.

The second work option advanced by the National Bank of Romania aimed at “increasing the minimum wage to 4,500 lei gross simultaneously with the total elimination of the tax deduction of 300 lei, so that an increase in net income is also felt in the net income of the employee”.

Finally, the third option would be to accept the freezing of the minimum wage, on the condition that the employer transfers 4.75% of the contribution that the employee pays today to the CAS, to pensions, stated the leader of the National Bank of Romania.

Who loses if the minimum wage is not increased, according to the PSD Minister of Labor

Florin Manole, the PSD Minister of Labor, also appeared at the statement, who reminded that “the PSD campaigned for the increase of the minimum wage, and will continue to do so until the last moment of the decision”.

“If the minimum wage does not increase, 2 million citizens with incomes between 4,050 lei and 4,500 lei would lose their purchasing power every month, and this should not happen. Secondly, the state would lose billions of lei both directly and indirectly from consumption taxes,” stated Florin Manole.

Employers: Raising the minimum wage would cause an avalanche effect

On the part of employers, representatives of IMM Romania claimed that an investigation among over 2000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) showed that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to bankruptcy of around 15% of these companies.

“Increasing the minimum wage always causes an increase in all categories of wages, so it would have an avalanche effect and as a result would greatly increase the expenses of companies. And then it would have the following negative effects: a part of the companies would no longer survive. According to our investigation, 14.7% of the entrepreneurs say that they should close their doors, and the others should either reduce their activity or reduce their competitiveness. So the effects at the SME level would be very negative”, said Ovidiu Nicolescu, the honorary president of IMM Romania.

He also pointed out that Romania has the lowest percentage of labor force in the private sector in the entire EU, 13.2%, while in countries like Denmark this percentage is double.

“Since we have the lowest percentage, do we reduce this as well? We excel in the number of employees in the state sector. In the SME sector there are approximately 2 million employees,” he said.

Another member of IMM Romania, Beniamin Lucescu, said that he proposed to the prime minister to keep the salary at 4,050 lei and to postpone a decision after an analysis of the first six months of next year.

“From an economic point of view, we must be able to pay this money. Until it is decided next week, we have proposed to stay at 4,050 lei and after the first 6 months with all the price increases generated by taxes and duties, 10% excise, the increase in VAT, very high inflation, let's wait for an evaluation and after the first 6 months we can say if we can bear an increase”, said Beniamin Lucescu.

How many foreign workers from non-EU states will be able to work in Romania in 2026

In the meeting of the Tripartite National Council for Social Dialogue, Government representatives and social partners also discussed the contingent of foreign workers from non-EU states who can work in Romania during 2026. A normative act in this regard will be adopted by the Government in the coming weeks, the Executive announced.

It was also discussed about the project regarding the amendment of the legislation in the field of copyright, the reorganization of Romsilva, aspects related to human resources in health and social assistance, and the salary in the field of education.