Employment rate of working age population is 61.9% in 2021

The employment rate of the working age population (15-64 years) last year, was 62.1%, going up from the previous year by 1.7 percentage points, according to data published on Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

In 2021, employment rate of population with ages between 20-64 was 67.1%, going up from the previous year by 1.9 percentage points.

Last year, Romania's active population was 8.214 million persons, of which 7,755 million persons were occupied and 459,000 were unemployed.

The employment rate of the working age population (15-64) was 61.9%, going up from the previous year by 1.7 percentage points. Like in previous years, the employment rate was higher in men (71.1% from 52.5% for women). Based on residence, employment rate was higher in the urban area (67.2%, as opposed to 55.5% in the rural area). Employment rate in youths (15-24 years) was 21.2%, and that of elderly people (55-64 years), 43.8%.

According to the INS, the highest employment rate for elderly people was registered among graduates of higher learning (80.1%). Employed were 54.1% of persons with average education and 20.9% people with a low-level education.

Employees, going up from the previous year (+89,000 people), held the largest share (84.9%) among the working population. In 2021, self-employed workers and unpaid family workers represented 13.7% of the employed population.

Allocation of the employed population on ownership forms shows that the private sector has absorbed 81.7% of this. The public sector included 17.4% of the employed population and in the mixed sector there were 0.9% of the employed persons.

Skilled workers represented 18.3% of the total employed population. Significant shares were held by specialists in various areas of activity (17.5%) and services workers (17.4%).

Of the total employed persons, 11.8% worked in the agricultural sector, 32.9% in industry or construction and 55.3% in services. 6.844 million persons were employed in non-agricultural activities, significant shares being held by those that carried out their activity in the processing industry (22.3%), commerce (20.0%) and constructions (11.2%). Of the total employed persons in 2021, 301,000 (3.9%) worked part-time. The majority of part-time employed people in the agricultural sector was 70.9%.

In 2021, the average work week duration for main activity was 39.8 hours per week; 52,000 persons carried out secondary activities, working on average 13.4 hours a week.

Unemployment rate was 5.6%, going down from the previous year (6.1% in 2020). Based on gender, the deviation of the two unemployment rates was for one percentage point (6% in men against 5% in women), and for areas of residence it was 5.2 percentage points (8.6% in the rural area as opposed to 3.4% in the urban area). Unemployment rate was highest (21%) among youths (15-24 years).

INS mentioned that unemployment mostly affected graduates of average and lower education, which saw an unemployment rate of 13.6%, namely 5.1%. Unemployment rate was only 2.1% for graduates of higher education. Long-term unemployment rate (for over an year in unemployment) was 2%, and long-term unemployment incidence was 36.6%. For youths (15-24 years) long term unemployment rate was 11%, and the incidence for long-term unemployment rate was 52.3%.